"... Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else. ..."
Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot
is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed
how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive
dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else.
As to the wall, it is one of the silliest projects ever suggested. Maybe that's why it was so easy to sell it to the intellectually
disadvantaged electorate. There are two things that can stop illegal immigration.
First, go for the employers, enact a law that fines them to the tune of $50,000 or more per every illegal they employ. Second,
enact the law that anyone caught residing in the US illegally has no right to enter the US legally, to obtain asylum, permanent
residency, or citizenship for life, and include a provision that marriage to a US citizen does not nullify this ban.
Then enforce both laws. After that illegals would run out of the country, and greedy employers won't hire any more. Naturally,
the wall, even if built, won't change anything: as long as there are employers trying to save on salaries, immigration fees, and
Social Security tax, and people willing to live and work illegally risking nothing, no wall would stem the flow.
Unfortunately, no side is even thinking about real measures, both are just posturing.
Am wondering in which prosperous U.S. Zionist "career" field has John Yoo landed?
He is a distinguished professor at Berkley Law, UC. Here's his bio:
Professor Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law and director of the Korea Law
Center, the California Constitution Center, and the Law School's Program in Public Law and
Policy. His most recent books are Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons
Change the Rules for War (Encounter 2017) (with Jeremy Rabkin) and Point of Attack:
Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Professor Yoo is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a visiting
fellow at the Hoover Institution
From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of
Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving
foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers.
Notice how they gloss over his diabolical activities as deputy AG for the Bush II
Adminstration "where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the
separation of powers."
And, oh, yeah, he cobbled together legal statements that gave the Bush Admin carte blanche
to engage in "enhanced interrogation techniques," more commonly known as "torture." He was
about to be in big dodo for his crimes. but just like the 5 dancing Israelis were rescued by
Chertoff, a guy named David Margolis managed to get Yoo off the hook:
The Office of Professional Responsibilty (OPR) report concluded that Yoo had "committed
'intentional professional misconduct' when he advised the CIA it could proceed with
waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects,"
although the recommendation that he be referred to his state bar association for possible
disciplinary proceedings was overruled by David Margolis, another senior Justice department
lawyer.
The trouble with CIA democrats is not that they are stupid, but that that are evil.
Hillary proved to be really destructive witch during her Obama stunt as the Secretary of State. Destroyed Libya and Ukraine,
which is no small feat.
Notable quotes:
"... The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided. ..."
"... She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League. ..."
The Grauniad just quoted a tweet from a predictably OUTRAGED @HillaryClinton:
Actions have consequences, and whether we're in Syria or not, the people who want to
harm us are there & at war. Isolationism is weakness. Empowering ISIS is dangerous.
Playing into Russia & Iran's hands is foolish. This President is putting our national
security at grave risk.
This from the woman who almost singlehandedly (i.e. along with David Cameron and Sarkovy)
destroyed Libya and allowed -- if not encouraged -- the flow of US weapons to go into the
hands of ISIS allies in the US-Saudi-Israeli obsession with toppling Assad regardless of the
consequences. As Justin Raimondo wrote in
Antiwar.com in 2015:
The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State
Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all
other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked
the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and
al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the
ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided.
This crazy policy was an extension of our regime change operation in Libya, a.k.a.
"Hillary's War," where the US – "leading from behind" – and a coalition of our
Western allies and the Gulf protectorates overthrew Muammar Qaddafi. There, too, we
empowered radical Islamists with links to al-Qaeda affiliates – and then used them to
ship weapons to their Syrian brothers, as another document uncovered by Judicial Watch
shows.
After HRC's multiple foreign policy fiascos she is the last person who should be
commenting on this matter.
a different chris, December 21, 2018 at 11:50 am
> the people who want to harm us are there & at war
Sounds like then they are too busy to harm us? She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League.
Overall, arms sales increased in 2017, with total global sales nearing 400
billion dollars, marking a 2.5 percent increase from last year and the third year of continued
growth for the industry.
Russia comes in second, with year-over-year growth in arms production. In 2017, Russia
provided the world with 10 percent of arms sales, closely followed by The UK.
Only major arms companies were included in this study. China was excluded due to
insufficient data.
Problem with this is that the buyers of all that American weaponry are definitely not got
any 'bang for the proverbial buck' (pun intended). Horrendously overpriced weaponry which in
most instances render less value and effectiveness than similarly available Russian
analogues.
They know, the arms are inferior garbage, it's just like mafioso protection money or
better known as extortion. The charge a fortune for substandard weapons and MIC folks keep
the change. Same as murican tax payers. If there were no boogie men created then what would
be the justification for all the spending on military hardware?
There is no return on investment here. It's money laundering.
Letter of intent only. They have literally purchased none of those orders, despite
repeated US harassment for the 15 Billion for the THAADS to get the ball rolling. All bluster
and boasting and smoke and mirrors.
My suspicion is that SA under MBS is considering switching sides slowly and will purchase
Russian and Chinese instead. If the US had foreknowledge of this, hence the switch in tone re
butchering journalists and Yemenis ... hence why MBS isn't Time Magazine poster boy at the
moment.
Your correct I went back and checked it was order book not delivery,MBS situation is very
interesting with the recent high five with Putin there was some backstory that it was
celebration of a certain US admirals demise that was causing them problems whether true or
not I dont know but it would not surprise me if S400's end up in Saudi Arabia
Remember that old stuff about Krupp being the "Merchant of Death"? Aren't we, like, edging
into that territory? Is this what the Founders and Ratifiers had in mind? Could this enormous
arms trade and our military expenditures and adventures be a clue that we're on the wrong
track?
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... The idea that examiners should not criticize any bank misconduct, predation, or 'unsafe and unsound practice' that does not constitute a felony is obviously insane. ..."
"... The trade association complaint that examiners dare to criticize non-felonious bank conduct – and the WSJ ..."
"... I have more than a passing acquaintance with banking, banking regulation, and banking's rectitude (such an old fashioned word) in the importance for Main Street's survival, and for the country's as a whole survival as a trusted pivot point in world finance , or for the survival of the whole American project. I know this sounds like an over-the-top assertion on my part, however I believe it true. ..."
"... Obama et al confusing "banking" with sound banking is too ironic, imo. ..."
"... It was actually worse than this. The very deliberate strategy was to indoctrinate employees of federal regulatory agencies to see the companies they regulated not as "partners" but as "customers" to be served. This theme is repeated again and again in Bush era agency reports. Elizabeth Warren was viciously attacked early in the Obama Administration for calling for a new "watchdog" agency to protect consumers. The idea that a federal agency would dedicate itself to protecting citizens first was portrayed as dangerously radical by industry. ..."
"... Models on Clinton and Bush. What's not to like? Why isn't msm and dem elites showing him the love when he's following their long term policies? And we might assume these would be hills policies if she had been pushed over the line. A little thought realizes that in spite of the pearl clutching they far prefer him to Bernie. ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is
to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas
City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
The Wall Street Journal published an article
on December 12, 2018 that should warn us of coming disaster: "Banks Get Kinder, Gentler
Treatment Under Trump." The last time a regulatory head lamented that regulators were not
"kinder and gentler" promptly ushered in the Enron-era fraud epidemic. President Bush made
Harvey Pitt his Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair in August 2001 and, in one of
his early major addresses, he spoke on October 22, 2001 to a group of accounting
leaders.
Pitt, as a private counsel, represented all the top tier audit firms, and they had
successfully pushed Bush to appoint him to run the SEC. The second sentence of Pitt's speech
bemoaned the fact that the SEC had not been "a kinder and gentler place for accountants." He
concluded his first paragraph with the statement that the SEC and the auditors needed to work
"in partnership." He soon reiterated that point: "We view the accounting profession as our
partner" and amped it up by calling accountants the SEC's "critical partner."
Pitt expanded on that point: "I am committed to the principle that government is and must be
a service industry." That, of course, would not be controversial if he meant a service agency
(not "industry") for the public. Pitt, however, meant that the SEC should be a "service
industry" for the auditors and corporations.
Pitt then turned to pronouncing the SEC to be the guilty party in the "partnership." He
claimed that the SEC had terrorized accountants. He then stated that he had ordered the SEC to
end this fictional terror campaign.
[A]ccountants became afraid to talk to the SEC, and the SEC appeared to be unwilling to
listen to the profession. Those days are ended.
This prompted Pitt to ratchet even higher his "partnership" language.
I speak for the entire Commission when I say that we want to have a continuing dialogue,
and partnership, with the accounting profession,
Recall that Pitt spoke on October 22, 2001. Here are the relevant excerpts from the NY
Times' Enron
timeline :
Oct. 16 – Enron announces $638 million in third-quarter losses and a $1.2 billion
reduction in shareholder equity stemming from writeoffs related to failed broadband and water
trading ventures as well as unwinding of so-called Raptors, or fragile entities backed by
falling Enron stock created to hedge inflated asset values and keep hundreds of millions of
dollars in debt off the energy company's books.
Oct. 19 – Securities and Exchange Commission launches inquiry into Enron
finances.
Oct. 22 – Enron acknowledges SEC inquiry into a possible conflict of interest
related to the company's dealings with Fastow's partnerships.
Oct. 23 – Lay professes confidence in Fastow to analysts.
Oct. 24 – Fastow ousted.
The key fact is that even as Enron was obviously spiraling toward imminent collapse (it
filed for bankruptcy on December 2) – and the SEC knew it – Pitt offered no warning
in his speech. The auditors and the corporate CEOs and CFOs were not the SEC's 'partners.'
Thousands of CEOs and CFOs were filing false financial statements – with 'clean' opinions
from the then 'Big 5' auditors. Pitt was blind to the 'accounting control fraud' epidemic that
was raging at the time he spoke to the accountants. Thousands of his putative auditor
'partners' were getting rich by blessing fraudulent financial statements and harming the
investors that the SEC is actually supposed to serve.
Tom Frank aptly characterized the Bush appointees that completed the destruction of
effective financial regulation as "The Wrecking Crew." It is important, however, to understand
that Bush largely adopted and intensified Clinton's war against effective regulation. Clinton
and Bush led the unremitting bipartisan assault on regulation for 16 years. That produced the
criminogenic environment that produced the three largest financial fraud epidemics in history
that hyper-inflated the real estate bubble and drove the Great Financial Crisis (GFC).
President Trump has renewed the Clinton/Bush war on regulation and he has appointed banking
regulatory leaders that have consciously modeled their assault on regulation on Bush and
Clinton's 'Wrecking Crews.'
Bill Clinton's euphemism for his war on effective regulation was "Reinventing Government."
Clinton appointed VP Al Gore to lead the assault. (Clinton and Gore are "New Democrat" leaders
– the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party.) Gore decided he needed to choose an
anti-regulator to conduct the day-to-day leadership. We know from Bob Stone's memoir the sole
substantive advice he gave Gore in their first meeting that caused Gore to appoint him as that
leader. "Do not 'waste one second going after waste, fraud, and abuse.'" Elite insider fraud
is, historically, the leading cause of bank losses and failures, so Stone's advice was sure to
lead to devastating financial crises. It is telling that it was the fact that Stone gave
obviously idiotic advice to Gore that led him to select Stone as the field commander of Clinton
and Gore's war on effective regulation.
Stone convinced the Clinton-Gore administration to embrace the defining element of crony
capitalism as its signature mantra for its war on effective regulation. Stone and his troops
ordered us to refer to the banks, not the American people, as our "customers." Peters' foreword
to Stone's book admits the action, but is clueless about the impact.
Bob Stone's insistence on using the word "customer" was mocked by some -- but made an
enormous difference over the course of time. In general, he changed the vocabulary of public
service from 'procedure first' to 'service first.'"
That is a lie. We did not 'mock' the demand that we treat the banks rather than the American
people as our "customer" – we openly protested the outrageous order that we embrace and
encourage crony capitalism. Crony capitalism's core principle – which is unprincipled
– is that the government should treat elite CEOs as their 'customers' or 'partners.' A
number of us publicly expressed our rage at the corrupt order to treat CEOs as our customers.
The corrupt order caused me to leave the government.
Our purpose as regulators is to serve the people of the United States – not bank CEOs.
It was disgusting and dishonest for Peters to claim that our objection to crony capitalism
represented our (fictional) disdain for serving the public. Many S&L regulators risked
their careers by taking on elite S&L frauds and their powerful political fixers. Many of us
paid a heavy personal price because we acted to protect the public from these elite frauds. Our
efforts prevented the S&L debacle from causing a GFC – precisely because we
recognized the critical need to spend most of our time preventing and prosecuting the elite
frauds that Stone wanted us to ignore..
Trump's wrecking crew is devoted to recreating Clinton and Bush's disastrous crony
capitalism war on regulation that produced the GFC. In a June 8,
2018 article , the Wall Street Journal mocked Trump's appointment of Joseph Otting
as Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The illustration that introduces the article bears the
motto: "IN BANKS WE TRUST."
Otting, channeling his inner Pitt, declared his employees guilty of systematic misconduct
and embraced crony capitalism through Pitt's favorite phrase – "partnership."
I think it is more of a partnership with the banks as opposed to a dictatorial perspective
under the prior administration.
Otting, while he was in the industry, compared the OCC under President Obama to a fictional
interstellar terrorist. Obama appointed federal banking regulators that were pale imitation of
Ed Gray, Joe Selby, and Mike Patriarca – the leaders of the S&L reregulation. The
idea that Obama's banking regulators were akin to 'terrorists' is farcical.
The WSJ's December 12, 2018 article reported that Otting had also used Bob Stone's
favorite term to embrace crony capitalism.
Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting has also changed the tone from the top at his
agency, calling banks his "customers."
There are many terrible role models Trump could copy as his model of how to destroy banking
regulation and produce the next GFC, but Otting descended into unintentional self-parody when
he channeled word-for-word the most incompetent and dishonest members of Clinton and Bush's
wrecking crews.
The same article reported a trade association's statement that demonstrates the type of
outrageous reaction that crony capitalism inevitably breeds within industry.
Banks are suffering from "examiner criticisms that do not deal with any violation of law,"
said Greg Baer, CEO of the Bank Policy Institute ."
The article presented no response to this statement so I will explain why it is absurd.
First, "banks" do not "suffer" from "examiner criticism." Banks gain from examiner criticism.
Effective regulators (and whistleblowers) are the only people who routinely 'speak truth to
power.' Auditors, credit rating agencies, and attorneys routinely 'bless' the worst CEO abuses
that harm banks while enriching the CEO. The bank CEO cannot fire the examiner, so the
examiners' expert advice is the only truly "independent" advice the bank's board of directors
receives. That makes the examiners' criticisms invaluable to the bank. CEOs hate our advice
because we are the only 'control' (other than the episodic whistleblower) that is willing and
competent to criticize the CEO.
The idea that examiners should not criticize any bank misconduct, predation, or 'unsafe
and unsound practice' that does not constitute a felony is obviously insane. While
"violations of law" (felonies) are obviously of importance to us in almost all cases, our
greatest expertise is in identifying – and stopping – "unsafe and unsound
practices" because such practices, like fraud, are leading causes of bank losses and
failures.
Third, repeated "unsafe and unsound practices" are a leading indicator of likely elite
insider bank fraud and other "violations of law."
The trade association complaint that examiners dare to criticize non-felonious bank
conduct – and the WSJ reporters' failure to point out the absurdity of that
complaint – demonstrate that the banking industry's goal remains the destruction of
effective banking regulation. Trump's wrecking crew is using the Clinton and Bush playbook to
restore fully crony capitalism. He has greatly accelerated the onset of the next GFC.
Thank you for this, Bill Black. IMO the long-term de-regulatory policies under successive
administrations cited here, together with their neutering the rule of law by overturning the
Glass-Steagall Act; de-funding and failing to enforce antitrust, fraud and securities laws;
financial repression of the majority; hidden financial markets subsidies; and other policies
are just part of an organized, long-term systemic effort to enable, organize and subsidize
massive control and securities fraud; theft of and disinvestment in publicly owned resources
and services; environmental damage; and transfers of social costs that enable the organizers
to in turn gain a hugely disproportionate share of the nation's wealth and nearly absolute
political control under their "Citizens United" political framework.
Not to diminish, but among other things the current president provides nearly daily
entertainment, diversion and spectacle in our Brave New World that serves to obfuscate what
has occurred and is happening.
I'm with you Chauncey. I believe the rot really got started with creative accounting in
early 1970s. That's when accountants of every flavor lost themselves and were soon followed
by the lawyers. Sauce for the goose.
Banks and Insurers and many industrial concerns have become too big. We could avoid all
the regulatory problems by placing a maximum size on commercial endeavour.
A number of years ago I did both the primary capital program and environmental (NEPA) review
for major capital projects in a Federal Region. Hundreds of millions of dollars were at
stake. A local agency wanted us (the Feds) to approve pushing up many of their projects using
a so-called Public Private Partnership (PPP). This required the local agency to borrow many
millions from Wall Street while at the same time privatizing many of their here-to-fore
public operations. And of course there was an added benefit of instituting a non-union
shop.
To this end I was required to sit down with the local agency head (he actually wore white
shoes), his staff and several representatives of Goldman-Sachs. After the meeting ended, I
opined to the agency staff that Goldman-Sachs was "bullshit" and so were their projects.
Shortly thereafter I was removed to a less high-profile Region with projects that were not
all that griftable, and there was no danger of me having to review a PPP.
Oh, and I denied, denied, denied saying "bullshit."
Thank you, NC, for featuring these posts by Bill Black.
I have more than a passing acquaintance with banking, banking regulation, and banking's
rectitude (such an old fashioned word) in the importance for Main Street's survival, and for
the country's as a whole survival as a trusted pivot point in world finance , or for
the survival of the whole American project. I know this sounds like an over-the-top assertion
on my part, however I believe it true.
Main Street also knows the importance of sound banking. Sound banking is not a 'poker
chip' to be used for games. Sound banking is key to the American experiment in
self-determination, as it has been called.
Politicians who 'don't get this" have lost touch with the entire American enterprise,
imo. And, no, the neoliberal promise that nation-states no longer matter doesn't make this
point moot.
adding: US founding father Alexander Hambleton did understand the importance of sound
banking, and so Obama et al confusing "banking" with sound banking is too ironic, imo.
It was actually worse than this. The very deliberate strategy was to indoctrinate
employees of federal regulatory agencies to see the companies they regulated not as
"partners" but as "customers" to be served. This theme is repeated again and again in Bush
era agency reports. Elizabeth Warren was viciously attacked early in the Obama Administration
for calling for a new "watchdog" agency to protect consumers. The idea that a federal agency
would dedicate itself to protecting citizens first was portrayed as dangerously radical by
industry.
Models on Clinton and Bush.
What's not to like? Why isn't msm and dem elites showing him the love when he's following
their long term policies?
And we might assume these would be hills policies if she had been pushed over the line.
A little thought realizes that in spite of the pearl clutching they far prefer him to
Bernie.
Like the term "conspiracy theory "whataboutism" is a nasty and dirty propaganda trick. Truth can be understood only in historical
context.
Notable quotes:
"... The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote." ..."
"... Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime, "whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: ..."
"... "Whataboutism" is the attempt to understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?" ..."
"... Whataboutism seems to proclaim that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth. ..."
The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is his demolition of the Guardian's
reuse of the Merkel "quote."
This one detail tells us so much about how propaganda works, and about how it can be defeated. Successful propaganda both depends
upon and seeks to accelerate the erasure of historical memory. This is because its truths are always changing to suit the immediate
needs of the state. None of its truths can be understood historically. b makes the connection between the documented but forgotten
past "truth" of Merkel's quote and its present reincarnation in the Guardian, and this is really all he *needs* to do.
What b points out is something quite simple; yet the ability to do this very simple thing is becoming increasingly rare and
its exercise increasingly difficult to achieve. It is for me the virtue that makes b's analysis uniquely indispensable.
Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime, "whataboutism." The crime may be defined
as follows:
"Whataboutism" is the attempt to understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has
asserted contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does this *other* truth affect
our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?"
Whataboutism seems to proclaim that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no essential relation to any other past,
present, or future asserted truth.
In reality this is mostly neocolonial way of dealing with countries. Allowing local oligarchy
to steal as much loaned by foreign states money as they can and converting the country into the
debt slave. Look at Greece and Ukraine for two prominent examples.
The position of OneCommentator is a typical position of defenders and propagandists
of neoliberalism
IMF is part of "Washington Consensus" with the direct goal of converting countries into debt slaves of industrialized
West. It did not work well with Acia counties, but it is great success in some countries in Europe and most of Africa and Latin
America (with Argentina as the most recent example)
Notable quotes:
"... As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies – while possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well! ..."
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom..
Wrong. Traditional liberalism supported both social and economic freedoms. That
included support for most of the civil rights and freedoms we enjoy today AND free trade and
free investments. It used to be that liberals were practically unpopular with right wing
(traditional conservative for example) parties but more or less on the same side as left wing
parties, mainly because of their social positions. More recently the left wing parties became
more and more unhappy with the economic freedoms promoted by liberals while the right wing
parties embraced both the economic and social freedoms to a certain degree.
So, the leftists
found themselves in a bind practically having reversed roles which the the conservatives as
far as support for liberalism goes. So, typically, they're using propaganda to cover their
current reactionary tendencies and coins a new name for liberals: neoliberals which, they
say, are not the same as liberals (who are their friends since liberal means freedom lover
and they like to use that word a lot).
"austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it.
Austerity is caused by incompetent governments unable to balance their budgets.
They had 60 years to do it properly after ww2 and the reconstruction that followed but many
of them never did it. So now it is very simple: governments ran out of money and nobody wants
to lend them more. That's it, they hit the wall and there is nothing left on the bottom if
the purse.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt.
It is a bit more complicated than that. Developed countries like Greece are supposed to run
more or less balanced budgets over longer periods. Sure, they need to borrow money on a
regular basis and may that is supposed to be done by issuing bonds or other forms of
government debt that investors buy on the open market. For such governments the IMF is
supposed to just fill in in a minor way not to provide the bulk of all the loans needed on a
temporary basis. Because of incompetent governments Greece is practically bankrupt hence it
is not going to be able to pay back most of the existing debts and definitely not newer
debts. So practically the IMF is not, ending money to them, it is giving them the money. So,
I would say that they have a good reason to wag its finger.
If private, stockholder-held central banks such as the FED and the FED-backed ECB were not
orchestrating this depression, and anybody who believed they were was a "wacko-nutcase
conspiracy theorist", then why do they keep repeating the same mistakes of forcing un-payable
bailout loans, collapsing banks, wiping out people's savings and then imposing austerity on
those nations year after year – when it is clearly a failed policy?
Possible Answers :
1. Bank presidents are all ex-hippies who got hooked on LSD in the 70's and have not yet
recovered fully as their brains are still fried!
2. Central bankers have been recruited from insane asylums in both Europe and America in
government-sponsored programs to see whether blithering idiots are capable of running large,
international financial institutions.
3. All catastrophic events in the banking/business world, such as the derivative and
housing crash of 2008, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and The Great Depression of 1929-40
were totally random events that just occurred out of nowhere and central banks were caught
off guard – leaving them no option but to play with their willies for years on end
until a major war suddenly happened to pull the whole world out of "bad times"!
4. As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot
be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters
having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so
as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums
and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies – while
possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well!
Please choose one of the possible answers from above and write a short 500 word essay on
whether it may or may not true – using well-defined logical arguments. I expect your
answers in by Friday of this week as I would like to get pissed out of my mind at the pub on
Saturday night!
The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as
well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom...it is a PR spin concept that names slavery with a a word that sounds like the
opposite...if "they" called it neoslavery it just wouldn't sell in the market for political
concepts.
..."austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it. To mend it was a case of preservation of the elite and
the devil take the hindmost, that's most of us.
...and even Labour, the party of trade unionism, has adopted austerity to drive its
policy.
...we need a Peoples' Party to stand for the revaluation of labour so we get paid for our
effort rather than the distortion, the rich xxx poor divide, of neoslavery austerity.
"What do you mean by claiming Hersh "cozys up" to MIC ppl? And what would be a specific
example of a story he broke after doing that?"
Our Men in Iran?
"We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the
D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada," a former senior American intelligence
official told me. ... In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised
the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been
privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in
Nevada
His conversations with Lieutenant Calley are apparently what allowed him to break the My
Lai massacre story as well, even though members of the military had already spoken out about
it, and there had been already been charges brought. It just revealed the story to the
general public, which prompted a fuller investigation and courts martial. I'm sure there are
others.
So, obviously Hersh's "cozying up" (surely not the right term for it, though) is in the
interests of raising public awareness of nefarious deeds, and is not scared of painting these
organizations in a bad light, whereas Mazzetti's goal here seems to be to maintain his
privileged access by providing favors - totally different motivations. It's rather easy to
contrast the two, which "smartypants54" has even stated here.
Whatever the case, it's true that elements of the NYT have been mouthpieces more or less
for government and corporate power for a long time. While I agree with Glenn about the faux
cynicism perpetuating this kind of activity - "don't be naive, this is done all the time" - I
can understand that it exists.
Such cynicism on the part of the public, rather than being an acknowledgment of
acceptance and approval of such practices, can also be seen as part of a more radical
critique of the corporate media in general, and the NYT particularly, in that such
organizations - not that I totally agree with this - , by their very nature, can't be
reformed and can never be totally effective checks on power because of the way they're
structured, and who they answer to.
That's definitely not a reason to stop pointing it out, though.
Update 4 : A UN Security Council meeting has been called for 11am
tomorrow after Ukraine incident with Russia, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in a
tweet.
* * *
Update 3 : according to media reports, on Monday Ukraine's president will propose imposing
military law, amid the ongoing crisis with Russia.
* * *
Update 2: This is the moment when the escalating crisis started...
* * *
Update 1: Following reports from the Ukraine navy that Russian ships had fired on Ukraine
vessels near the Kerch Strait, Ukraine accused Moscow of also illegally seizing three of its
naval ships - the "Berdyansʹk" and "Nikopolʹ" Gurza-class small armored artillery
boats and a raid tug A-947 "Jani Kapu" - off Crimea on Sunday after opening fire on them, a
charge that if confirmed could ignite a dangerous new crisis between the two countries.
As reported earlier, Russia did not immediately respond to the allegation, but Russian news
agencies cited the FSB security service as saying it had incontrovertible proof that Ukraine
had orchestrated what it called "a provocation" and would make its evidence public soon.
According to media reports, Russia said it has "impounded" three Ukrainian naval ships after
they crossed the border with Russia
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko immediately called a meeting with his top
military and security chiefs to discuss the situation.
Separately, the EU has urged both sides to rapidly de-escalate the tense situation at the
Kerch strait:
*EU URGES UKRAINE, RUSSIA TO DE-ESCALATE SITUATION AT STRAIT
*UKRAINE, RUSSIA SHOULD ACT W/ `UTMOST RESTRAINT', EU SAYS
*EU URGES RUSSIA TO RESTORE FREEDOM OF PASSAGE AT KERCH STRAIT
NATO has confirmed it is "closely monitoring" developments and is calling for "restraint and
de-escalation"...
" NATO is closely monitoring developments in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, and we are
in contact with the Ukrainian authorities. We call for restraint and de-escalation.
NATO fully supports Ukraine's sovereignty and its territorial integrity, including its
navigational rights in its territorial waters. We call on Russia to ensure unhindered access
to Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea, in accordance with international law.
At the Brussels Summit in July, NATO leaders expressed their support to Ukraine, and made
clear that Russia's ongoing militarisation of Crimea, the Black Sea, and the Azov Sea pose
further threats to Ukraine's independence and undermines the stability of the broader region.
"
Finally, Ukraine has called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting over 'Russian
aggression' while Ukraine's secretary for national security, Oleksander Turchynov, accused
Russia of engaging in an act of war: "We heard reports on incident and have concluded that it
was an act of war by Russian Federation against Ukraine"
* * *
As we detailed earlier, the Ukrainian navy has accused Russia of opening fire on some of its
ships in the Black Sea, striking one vessel, and wounding a crew member.
In a statement on its Facebook page , the Ukrainian navy said the
Russian military vessels opened fire on Ukrainian warships after they had left the 12-mile zone
near the Kerch Strait, leaving one man wounded, and one Ukrainian vessel damaged and
immobilized, adding that Russian warships "shoot to kill."
Ukraine accused a Russian coastguard vessel, named the Don, of ramming one of its tugboats
in "openly aggressive actions". The incident allegedly took place as three Ukrainian navy boats
- including two small warships - headed for the port of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov, an area of
heightened tensions between the countries.
Russia accused Ukraine of illegally entering the area and deliberately provoking a
conflict.
Sky News reports that the Ukrainian president has called an emergency session of his war
cabinet in response to the incident.
"Today's dangerous events in the Azov Sea testify that a new front of [Russian] aggression
is open," Ukrainian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa said.
"Ukraine [is] calling now for emergency meeting of United Nations Security Council."
It comes after a day of rising tensions off the coast of Crimea, and especially around the
Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from mainland Russia after Ukrainian vessels allegedly
violated the Russian border. The passage was blocked by a cargo ship and fighter jets were
scrambled.
According to RT , Russia has
stopped all navigation through the waterway using the cargo ship shown above. Videos from the
scene released by the Russian media show a large bulk freighter accompanied by two Russian
military boats standing under the arch of the Crimea Bridge and blocking the only passage
through the strait.
"The [Kerch] strait is closed for security reasons," the Director-General of the Crimean sea
ports, Aleksey Volkov, told TASS, confirming earlier media reports.
Russian Air Force Su-25 strike fighters were also scrambled to provide additional security
for the strait as the situation remains tense. The move came as five Ukrainian Navy ships had
been approaching the strait from two different sides.
According to RT, two Ukrainian artillery boats and a tugboat initially approached the strait
from the Black Sea while "undertaking dangerous maneuvers" and "defying the lawful orders of
the Russian border guards." Later, they were joined by two more military vessels that departed
from a Ukrainian Azov Sea port of Berdyansk sailing to the strait from the other side.
The Russian federal security agency FSB, which is responsible for maintaining the country's
borders, denounced the actions of the Ukrainian ships as a provocation, adding that they could
create a "conflict situation" in the region. According to the Russian media reports, the
Ukrainian vessels are still sailing towards the strait, ignoring the warnings of the Russian
border guards.
According to
Reuters , a bilateral treaty gives both countries the right to use the sea, which lies
between them and is linked by the narrow Kerch Strait to the Black Sea. Moscow is able to
control access between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea after it built a bridge that straddles
the Kerch Strait between Crimea and southern Russia.
Reuters adds that tensions surfaced on Sunday after Russia tried to intercept three
Ukrainian ships -- two small armored artillery vessels and a tug boat -- in the Black Sea,
accusing them of illegally entering Russian territorial waters.
The Ukrainian navy said a Russian border guard vessel had rammed the tug boat, damaging it
in an incident it said showed Russia was behaving aggressively and illegally. It said its
vessels had every right to be where they were and that the ships had been en route from the
Black Sea port of Odessa to Mariupol, a journey that requires them to go through the Kerch
Strait.
Meanwhile, Russia's border guard service accused Ukraine of not informing it in advance of
the journey, something Kiev denied, and said the Ukrainian ships had been maneuvering
dangerously and ignoring its instructions with the aim of stirring up tensions.
It pledged to end to what it described as Ukraine's "provocative actions", while Russian
politicians lined up to denounce Kiev, saying the incident looked like a calculated attempt by
President Petro Poroshenko to increase his popularity ahead of an election next year. Ukraine's
foreign ministry said in a statement it wanted a clear response to the incident from the
international community.
"Russia's provocative actions in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov have crossed the line and
become aggressive," it said. "Russian ships have violated our freedom of maritime navigation
and unlawfully used force against Ukrainian naval ships."
Both countries have accused each other of harassing each other's shipping in Sea of Azov in
the past and the U.S. State Department in August said Russia's actions looked designed to
destabilize Ukraine, which has two major industrial ports there.
The Russian world is caught up in a drama. Its leading Orthodox Church faces a schism over the Ukraine's drive for its own independent
church. If Kiev regime succeeds, the split between Russia proper and its breakaway Western part, the Ukraine, will widen. The Russian
Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. However, there is a chance
for the Russians to gain a lot from the split, to gain more than to lose.
The Ukraine actually has its own church, and this church is the self-ruling autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a part of the
Russian Orthodox Church. Its autonomy is very broad; it can be considered independent practically in every aspect excepting its nominal
recognition of Moscow supremacy. The Ukrainian Church does not pay tribute to Moscow, it elects its own bishops; it has no reason
to push for more. No tangible reason, at least.
But in the Ukraine, there was and is a strong separatist tendency, with a somewhat romantic and nationalist tinge, comparable
to Scots or Languedoc separatism. Its beginning could be traced to 18th Century, when a Moscow-appointed ruler Hetman Mazeppa rose
against Russia's Peter the Great and allied himself with the Swedish warrior-king Charles XII. A hundred years after the revolt,
the foremost Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin, composed a beautiful romantic poem Poltava (following
Byron's Mazeppa ) where he gives Mazeppa the following words:
For far too long we've bowed our heads, Without respect or liberty, Beneath the yoke of Warsaw's patronage, Beneath the yoke of Moscow's despotism. But now is Ukraine's chance to grow Into an independent power. (trans. by Ivan Eubanks)
This romantic dream of an independent Ukraine became real after the 1917 Revolution, under the German occupation at the conclusion
of World War One. Within a year or two, as the defeated Germans withdrew, the independent Ukraine became Soviet and joined Soviet
Russia in the Soviet Union of equal Republics. Even within the Union, the Ukraine was independent and it had its own UN seat. When
Russian President Yeltsin dissolved the Union, Ukraine became fully independent again.
In the 1991 divorce with rump Russia (after hundreds of years of integration), the Ukraine took with her a major portion of the
former Union's physical and human assets. The spacious country with its hard-working people, fertile black soil, the cream of Soviet
industry producing aircraft, missiles, trains and tractors, with the best and largest army within the Warsaw Treaty, with its universities,
good roads, proximity to Europe, expensive infrastructure connecting East and West, the Ukraine had a much better chances for success
than rump Russia.
But it didn't turn out this way, for reasons we shall discuss elsewhere. A failed state if there ever was one, the Ukraine was
quickly deserted by its most-valuable people, who ran away in droves to Russia or Poland; its industries were dismantled and sold
for the price of scrap metal. The only compensation the state provides is even more nationalism, even more declarations of its independence.
This quest for full independence has been even less successful than economic or military measures. The Kiev regime could dispense
with Moscow, but it became subservient to the West. Its finances are overseen by the IMF, its army by NATO, its foreign policy by
the US State Department. Real independence was an elusive goal, beyond the Ukraine's reach.
A total break of the Ukrainian church with the nominal supremacy of Moscow appealed to President Petro Poroshenko as a convincing
substitute for real independence, especially with a view toward the forthcoming elections. He turned to the patriarch of Constantinople,
His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew asking him to grant his church its full independence (called autocephaly
in ecclesiastical language).
Fine, but what is 'his church'? The vast majority of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians and their bishops are content with their status
within the Russian Church. They have their own head, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphrius, who is also content with his position.
They do not see any need for autocephaly. However, the Ukraine has two small splinter orthodox churches, one led by the ambitious
bishop Filaret and another by Macarius; both are very nationalist and anti-Russian, both support the regime and claim for autonomy,
both are considered illegitimate by the rest of the Orthodox world. These two small churches are potential embryos of a future Ukrainian
Church of President Poroshenko.
Now we shall turn to Bartholomew. His title describes him as the patriarch of Constantinople, but in vain you will seek this city
on a map. Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the greatest city of his time, the seat of Roman emperors,
was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and became Islamic Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and of the last Muslim
Caliphate; since 1920 it has been a city in the Republic of Turkey. The Constantinople Patriarchate is a phantom fossil of a great
past; it has a few churches, a monastery and a few ambitious monks located in Phanar, an old Greek quarter of Istanbul.
The Turkish government considers Bartholomew a bishop of the local Greeks, denying his 6 th -century title of Ecumenical
Patriarch. There are only three thousand Greeks in the city, so Bartholomew has very small foothold there indeed. His patriarchate
is a phantom in the world of phantoms, such as the Knights of Maltese and Temple Orders, Kings of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, emperors
of Brazil and of the Holy Roman Empire Phantom is not a swear word. Phantoms are loved by romantics enamoured by old rituals and
uniforms with golden aiguillettes. These honourable gentlemen represent nobody, they have no authority, but they can and do issue
impressive-looking certificates.
ORDER IT NOW
The Orthodox Church differs from its Roman Catholic sister by having no central figure like the Pope of Rome. The Orthodox have
a few equal-ranking heads of national churches, called Patriarchs or Popes. The Patriarch of Constantinople is one of these fourteen
church leaders, though he has more than his share of respect by virtue of tradition. Now the Phantom of Phanar seeks to make his
position much more powerful, akin to that of the Pope of Rome for the Western Church. His organization
claims that "The Ecumenical Patriarchate has the
responsibility of being the Church of final appeal in Orthodoxy, and it is the only Church that may establish autocephalous and autonomous
Churches". These claims are rejected by the Russian Church, by far the biggest Orthodox Church in the world.
As the Ukrainian church is a part of the Russian Church, it could seek its full independence (autocephaly) in Moscow, but it has
no such wish. The two small splinter churches turned to Phanar, and the Phanar leader was more than happy to get into the game. He
had sent two of his bishops to Kiev and started with establishing a united Ukrainian church. This church wouldn't be independent,
or autocephalous; it would be a church under the direct rule of Phanar, an autonomous or the stavropegial church. For Ukrainian
nationalists, it would be a sad reminder that they have the choice to go with Moscow or with Istanbul, now as their ancestors had
four hundred years ago. Full independence is not on the cards.
For the Phanar, it was not a first foray into Russian territory: Bartholomew also used the anti-Russian sentiments of Tallinn
and took a part of the Estonian churches and their faithful under his rule. However, then the Russians took it easy, for two reasons.
Estonia is small, there are not too many churches nor congregants; and besides, the Phanar had taken some positions in Estonia between
the wars, when Soviet Russia did not care much about the Church. The Ukraine is absolutely different. It is very big, it is the heart
of Russian church, and Constantinople has no valid claim on it.
The Russians say that President Poroshenko bribed Bartholomew. This is nonsense of very low grade; even if the Patriarch is not
averse to accepting gifts. Bartholomew had a very valid reason to accept Poroshenko's offer. If he would realize his plan and establish
a church of Ukraine under his own rule, call it autonomous or stavropegial or even autocephalous, he would cease being a phantom
and would become a very real church leader with millions of faithful. The Ukraine is second only to Russia in the Orthodox world,
and its coming under Constantinople would allow Bartholomew to become the most-powerful Orthodox leader.
The Russians are to blame themselves for much of their difficulties. They were too eager to accept the Phanar Phantom for the
real thing in their insistent drive for external approval and recognition. They could have forgotten about him three hundred years
ago instead of seeking his confirmation now and then. It is dangerous to submit to the weak; perhaps it is more risky than to submit
to the strong.
This reminds me of a rather forgotten novel by H. G. Wells
The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth . It is a story of a wondrous nourishment that allows children to grow into
forty-foot-high giants. Society mistreats the young titans. In a particularly powerful episode, a mean old hag scolds the tall kids
– thrice her size, and they timidly accept her silly orders. In the end, the giants succeed in standing their ground, throw off the
yoke and walk tall. Wells writes about "young giants, huge and beautiful, glittering in their mail, amidst the preparations for the
morrow. The sight of them lifted his heart. They were so easily powerful! They were so tall and gracious! They were so steadfast
in their movements!"
Russia is a young giant that tries to observe the pygmy-established rules. International organisation called PACE (The Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe) where Russia is harshly mistreated and is not even allowed to defend itself, is a good example.
International courts where Russia has little chance to stand its ground is another one. President Trump has taken the US out of a
few international organisations, though the US has huge weight in international affairs and all states pay heed to the US position.
Russia's voice is not even heard, and only now the Russians begin to ponder the advantages of Ruxit.
The church rules are equally biased as they place the biggest Orthodox state with millions of faithful Christians on the same
footing as Oriental phantoms.
In the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Patriarch of Constantinople had real weight. The Sultan defended his position, his decisions
had legal implications for the Orthodox subjects of the Empire. He caused many troubles for the Russian Church, but the Russians
had to observe his decrees as he was an imperial official. After Ataturk's revolution, the Patriarch lost his status, but the Russian
church, this young giant, continued to revere him and support him. After 1991, when Russia had turned to its once-neglected church,
the Russian Church multiplied its generosity towards Phanar and turned to him for guidance, for the Moscow Church had been confused
and unprepared for its new position. Being in doubt, it turned to tradition. We can compare this to the English "rotten boroughs"
of Dickens novels, towns that had traditionally sent their representatives to the Parliament though they scarcely had any dwellers.
In this search for tradition, the Russian church united with the Russian Church abroad, the émigré structure with its checkered
history that included support for Hitler. Its main contribution was fierce anti-Communism and rejection of the Soviet period of the
Russian past. However it could be justified by the Russians' desire to heal the White vs. Red split and restore the émigrés to the
Russian people. While honouring the Phanar Phantom as the honorary head of the Orthodox world had no justification at all.
The Phanar had US State Department backing to consider. US diplomacy has had a good hand in dealings with phantoms: for many years
Washington supported phantom governments-in-exile of the Baltic states, and this support was paid back a hundredfold in 1991. Now,
the US support for Phanar has paid back well in this renewed attack on Russia.
ORDER IT NOW
The Patriarch of Phanar, perhaps, underestimated possible Russian response to his Ukrainian meddling. He got used to Russian good
treatment; he remembered that the Russians meekly accepted his takeover of the Estonian church. Being encouraged by the US and driven
by his own ambitions, he made the radical step of voiding Constantinople's agreement of transfer of Kiev Metropolitan seat to Moscow,
had sent his bishops and took over the Ukraine to himself.
The Moscow Church anathemised Bartholomew, and forbade its priests to participate in service with Phanar priests and (!!!) with
priests that accept Phanar priests. While ending communion with Phanar is no pain at all, the secondary step – of ending communion
with the churches that refuse to excommunicate Phanar – is a very radical one. Other Orthodox churches are unhappy about Phanar moves.
They are aware that Phanar's new rules may threaten them, too. They are not keen to establish a Pope above themselves. But I doubt
they are ready to excommunicate Phanar.
The Russian church can take a less radical and more profitable way. The Orthodox world's unity is based on two separate principles.
One, the Eucharist. All Orthodox churches are united in the communion. Their priests can serve together and accept communion in any
recognised church. Two, the principle of canonical territory
. No church should appoint bishops on the other church's territory.
Phanar transgressed against the territorial principle. In response, the Russian Church excommunicated him. But Phanar refused
to excommunicate the Russians. As the result, the Russians are forbidden by their own church to accept communion if excommunicated
priests participate in the service. But the priests of the Church of Jerusalem do not ban anybody, neither Russians, no Phanariots.
As it happened with Russian counter-sanctions, they cause harm and pain mainly to Russians themselves. There are few Orthodox
pilgrims visiting Russia, while there are many Russian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, Mount Athos and other important sites of
Greece, Turkey and Palestine, first of all Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Now these pilgrims won't be able to receive the holy communion
in the Holy Sepulchre and in the Nativity Cathedral, while Russian priests won't be able to celebrate mass in these churches.
The Russian priests will probably suffer and submit, while the lay pilgrims will probably break the prohibition and accept the
Eucharist in the Church of Jerusalem.
It would be better if the Russian church were to deal with Phanar's treachery on the reciprocity basis. Phanar does not excommunicate
Russians, and Russians may go back to full communion with Phanar. Phanar broke the territorial principle, and the Russians may disregard
territorial principle. Since the 20th century, canonical territory has increasingly become a violated principle of canon law, says
OrthodoxWiki . Facing such major transgression, the Russians
may completely drop the territorial principle and send their bishops to Constantinople and Jerusalem, to Rome and Washington, while
keeping all Orthodox churches in full communion.
The Russian church will be able to spread the Orthodox faith all over the world, among the French in France, among the Italians
in Italy, among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Russian church dos not allow women into priesthood, does not allow gay unions,
does not consider the Jews its elder brothers, does not tolerate homosexual priests and allows its priests to marry. Perhaps it has
a good chance to compete with other churches for the flock and clergy.
Thus Moscow Church will be free of tenets it voluntarily accepted. Regarding communion, the Russian church can retain communion
with Phanar and Jerusalem and with other Orthodox churches, even with splinter churches on reciprocity basis. Moreover, the Russian
Church may allow communion with Catholics. At present, Catholics allow Russians to receive communion, but the Russian Church do not
allow their flock to accept Catholic communion and does not allow Catholics to receive communion in Russian churches. With all the
differences between the churches, we the Christians can share communion, flesh and blood of our Saviour, and this all we need.
All this is extremely relevant for the Holy Land. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilos does not want to quarrel
with Constantinople nor with Moscow. He won't excommunicate the priests of Phanar despite Moscow's requests, and I think he is right.
Ban on communion in the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem or in the Nativity of Bethlehem would become a heavy unnecessary and self-inflicted
punishment for Russian pilgrims. That is why it makes sense to retain joint communion, while voiding the territorial principle.
Russian church may nominate its bishops in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth to attract the flock presently neglected by the traditional
Patriarchate of Jerusalem. I mean the Palestinian Christians and Israeli Christians, hundreds of thousands of them.
The Church of Jerusalem is, and had been ruled by ethnic Greeks since the city was conquered by the Ottomans in 16th century.
The Turks removed local Arab Orthodox clerics and appointed their loyal Greeks. Centuries passed by, the Turks are gone, the Greeks
are loyal only to themselves, and they do not care much about the natives. They do not allow Christian Palestinian monks to join
monasteries, they bar them from holding bishop cathedra and do not let them into the council of the church (called Synod). This flagrant
discrimination annoys Palestinian Christians; many of them turned to the Catholic, or even Protestant churches. The flock is angry
and ready to rise in revolt against the Greeks, like the Syrian Orthodox did in 1898, when they expelled the Greek bishops and elected
an Arab Patriarch of Antioch – with Russian support. (Until that time the Patriarch of Antioch had been elected in Istanbul by Phanar
monks exclusively from the "Greeks by race", as they
said in those days, and as is
the custom of the See of Jerusalem now).
Last Christmas, the Patriarch of Jerusalem had been blocked from entering the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem by angry local Christians,
and only Israeli army allowed him to get in. If the Russian Church will establish its bishops in the Holy Land, or even appoint her
own Patriarch of Rum (traditional name of the Church) many churches of the Holy Land will accept him, and many faithful will find
the church that they can relate to. For the Greek leadership of the Jerusalem church is interested in pilgrimage churches only; they
care for pilgrims from Greece and for Greeks in the Holy Land.
ORDER IT NOW
There are many Russian Orthodox in Israel; the Greeks of the Church do not attend to their needs. Since 1948, not a single new
church had been built by the Orthodox in Israel. Big cities with many Christians – Beer Sheba, Afula, touristy Eilat – have no churches
at all. For sure, we can partly blame Israeli authorities and their hatred of Christianity. However, the Church of Jerusalem is not
trying hard enough to erect new churches.
There is a million of immigrants from Russia in Israel. Some of them were Christians, some want to enter the church, being disappointed
by brutal and hostile Judaism. They had some romantic image of the Jewish faith, being brought up in atheist USSR, but the reality
was not even similar. Not only them; Israelis of every origin are unhappy with Judaism that exists now in Israel. They are ready
for Christ. A new church of the Holy Land established by Russians can bring Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, native Palestinians and
immigrants to Christ.
Thus Phanar's rejection of territorialism can be used for the greater glory of the Church. Yes, the Russian church will change
its character and assume some of global, ecumenical function. This is big challenge; I do not know whether the Russians are ready
for it, whether the Patriarch of Moscow Kyril is daring enough for it.
His Church is rather timid; the bishops do not express their views in public. However, a Moscow priest Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, who
was close to the Patriarch until recently, publicly called for full reformatting of the Orthodox Christianity, for getting rid of
rotten boroughs and phantoms, for establishing sturdy connection between laity and Patriarchate. Without great push by the incautious
Patriarch Bartholomew, these ideas could gestate for years; now they can come forth and change the face of the faith.
Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the greatest city of his time, the seat of Roman emperors,
was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 145 2
According to Wiki:
The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by an invading Ottoman army on 29 May
145 3 .
@geokat62 First, using Wikipedia as a
reference source is rather déclassé. You are right, however–Wikipedia is right, however–Constantinople did fall in 1493 and Mr.
Shamir was wrong. However, as the title of The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 (sic) tells, the empire
was gone in 1492. We all make mistakes and a few months' difference in events that happened over 500 years ago seems of little
significance. That you needed to bring it to our attention has far more significance to me.
Well now we have the second installment of the Great Orthodox Schism Controversy
I must say that Shamir does spin a rather lively story here rather more gripping than Saker's sombre monograph of a few weeks
ago
One is tantalized by images of dancing Israelis who are 'ready for Christ' and French and Italians converting en masse to Orthodoxy
[what with all the advantages outlined here by Shamir, I must admit it does sound rather attractive, for anyone thinking of 'trading
in' so to speak...]
A possible 'takeover' of the Patriarchate of Rum [will they add Coke...?] the possibilities are endless
'A new church of the Holy Land established by Russians can bring Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, native Palestinians and immigrants
to Christ.'
I usually like Shamir's writings but this article clearly shows up his shortcomings on this particular subject. He treats the
whole affair as if it is a business deal and then tallies up the pluses and the minuses for the Russian Orthodox church. He forgets
that the Russian church was massively persecuted and that for them doing the correct thing in God's site is the only thing.
The spacious country with its hard-working people, fertile black soil, the cream of Soviet industry producing aircraft,
missiles, trains and tractors, with the best and largest army within the Warsaw Treaty, with its universities, good roads,
proximity to Europe, expensive infrastructure connecting East and West, the Ukraine had a much better chances for success than
rump Russia.
Soviet-era industries couldn't compete in the modern capitalist economy, and were destined to die. Post-communist Ukraine had
no capable class of entrepreneurs, its univercities couldn't meet the demands of the market economy, Ukrainian workers lacked
marketable skills. It was a recipe for failure. Russia had all the same problems of course, but it also retained its vast reserves
of oil and gas
" The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. "
The loss of the catholic church because of the Anglican church indeed was horrible, financially.
Not just catholic priests in England suffered, archbishops on the continent, of British sees, who had never been in England, suffered
enormously.
While I respect and generally enjoy Shamir's intellect and writing skills, in this topic he is completely out of his depth. He
recommends actions which would totally destroy Christ's Church on earth, deforming it into a mere worldly contestant for the praise
of men.
The one true Church is not an episode in political gamesmanship–regardless how heretical bishops may behave from time to time–but
Shamir only relates to it in terms of what behaviors would yield the greatest worldly satisfaction in political power. This is
the fatal road the Roman church went down (labeled with the year 1054) when their mere bishop decided he needs to be the Pope
of the entire world and so broke communion and excommunicated the rest of the Church (which remained Orthodox). The papacy then
went on to a successful pursuit of worldly power through the sword that continues to this day. Restore communion with the Roman
pope??? Is Shamir crazy??? Each pope puts himself in the place of Christ (antichrist), and true Orthodox will never have Eucharist
with that.
Russia's mistake and the mistake of the rest of Orthodoxy is to have gone along with Constantinople (out of brotherly love
and respect for Tradition) for the past 100 years of her micro-heresies. The First and Most Egregious action by Constantinople
was to exploit the bloody Soviet persecution of the Church in Russia to declare that the rest of the Orthodox world must switch
from the Church calendar to the secular, civil calendar devised by the Latins. This was the kickoff of a chain of heretical actions
which are continuing throughout the world, to the extent that now so-called churches contemplate legitimizing women priests, sodomy,
pedophilia, and turning the Eucharist into a cafeteria.
The USA is 100% actively behind the actions in Ukraine and the Phanar. In fact no one can be enthroned in Constantinople without
the sponsorship of the CIA. So this arch-heretic Bartholomew of the Phanar "elevates" an excommunicated prideful heretic, Philaret,
to be the "head" a new "orthodox church in Ukraine." This is the empire seeking to destroy the strength of Russia, which is Orthodoxy.
The Evil wants to turn Orthodoxy into a beautiful whitewashed tomb: resplendent cathedrals, sumptuous robes, exalted chanting,
artful icons, politically correct bishops. But inside it will be full of dead men's bones.
" The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. "
The loss of the catholic church because of the Anglican church indeed was horrible, financially.
Not just catholic priests in England suffered, archbishops on the continent, of British sees, who had never been in England, suffered
enormously.
While I respect and generally enjoy Shamir's intellect and writing skills, in this topic he is completely out of his depth. He
recommends actions which would totally destroy Christ's Church on earth, deforming it into a mere worldly contestant for the praise
of men.
The one true Church is not an episode in political gamesmanship -- regardless how heretical bishops may behave from time to time–but
Shamir only relates to it in terms of what behaviors would yield the greatest worldly satisfaction in political power. This is
the fatal road the Roman church went down (labeled with the year 1054) when their mere bishop decided he needs to be the Pope
of the entire world and so broke communion and excommunicated the rest of the Church (which remained Orthodox).
The papacy then
went on to a successful pursuit of worldly power through the sword that continues to this day. Restore communion with the Roman
pope??? Is Shamir crazy??? Each pope puts himself in the place of Christ (antichrist), and true Orthodox will never have Eucharist
with that.
Russia's mistake and the mistake of the rest of Orthodoxy is to have gone along with Constantinople (out of brotherly love
and respect for Tradition) for the past 100 years of her micro-heresies. The First and Most Egregious action by Constantinople
was to exploit the bloody Soviet persecution of the Church in Russia to declare that the rest of the Orthodox world must switch
from the Church calendar to the secular, civil calendar devised by the Latins. This was the kickoff of a chain of heretical actions
which are continuing throughout the world, to the extent that now so-called churches contemplate legitimizing women priests, sodomy,
pedophilia, and turning the Eucharist into a cafeteria.
The USA is 100% actively behind the actions in Ukraine and the Phanar. In fact no one can be enthroned in Constantinople without
the sponsorship of the CIA. So this arch-heretic Bartholomew of the Phanar "elevates" an excommunicated prideful heretic, Philaret,
to be the "head" a new "orthodox church in Ukraine." This is the empire seeking to destroy the strength of Russia, which is Orthodoxy.
The Evil wants to turn Orthodoxy into a beautiful whitewashed tomb: resplendent cathedrals, sumptuous robes, exalted chanting,
artful icons, politically correct bishops. But inside it will be full of dead men's bones.
Very thoughtful article. While the brilliant conclusion that there could be advantages in abandoning the territorial principle
in Orthodoxy might offer some hope to the incoherent situation in the American Church, on the other hand letting go of territoriality
sacrifices regionalism for globalism. So is this a great opportunity or an execration? That would depend on whether the Patriarchs
are intent on building Christ's Kingdom, or their own.
CIA democrats of which Obama is a prominent example (and Hillary is another one) are are Werewolfs, very dangerous political beasts,
probably more dangerous to the world then Republicans like George W Bush. But in case of Ukraine, it was easily pushed into Baltic orbit,
because it has all the preconditions for that. So Nuland has an relatively easy, albeit dirty task. Also all this
probably that "in five years we will be living like French" was pretty effective. Now the population faces
consequences of its own stupidity. This is just neoliberal business as usual or neocolonialism.
Notable quotes:
"... populists on the right ..."
"... hired members of Ukraine's two racist-fascist, or nazi, political parties ..."
"... Disclaimer: No Russian, living or dead, had anything to do with the posting of this proudly home-grown comment ..."
Let's recap what Obama's coup
in Ukraine has led to shall we? Maybe installing and blatantly backing Neo Nazis in Ukraine might have something to do with the
rise of " populists on the right " that is spreading through Europe and this country, Hillary.
America's criminal 'news' media never even reported the coup, nor that in 2011 the Obama regime began
planning for
a coup in Ukraine . And that by 1 March 2013 they started organizing it
inside the
U.S. Embassy there . And that they hired members of Ukraine's two racist-fascist, or nazi, political parties , Right
Sector and Svoboda (which latter had been called the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine until the CIA advised them to change
it to Freedom Party, or "Svoboda" instead). And that in February 2014 they did it (and here's the
4 February 2014 phone call instructing the U.S. Ambassador
whom to place in charge of the new regime when the coup will be completed), under the cover of authentic anti-corruption demonstrations
that the Embassy organized on the Maidan Square in Kiev, demonstrations that the criminal U.S. 'news' media misrepresented as
'democracy demonstrations ,' though Ukraine already had democracy (but still lots of corruption, even more than today's U.S. does,
and the pontificating Obama said he was trying to end Ukraine's corruption -- which instead actually soared after his coup there).
But wait there's more .... Remember
that caravan of refugees making their way through Mexico? Guess where a number of them came from? Honduras. Yep. Another coup that
happened during Obama's and Hillary's tenure.
In a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
used a review of Henry Kissinger's latest book, "World Order ," to lay out her vision for "sustaining America's leadership
in the world." In the midst of numerous global crises, she called for return to a foreign policy with purpose, strategy and pragmatism.
She also highlighted some of these policy choices in her memoir "Hard Choices" and how they contributed to the challenges that
Barack Obama's administration now faces.
**
The chapter on Latin America, particularly the section on Honduras, a major source of the child migrants currently pouring into
the United States, has gone largely unnoticed. In letters to Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, more than 100 members of Congress
have repeatedly warned about the deteriorating security situation in Honduras, especially since the 2009 military coup that ousted
the country's democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. As Honduran scholar Dana Frank points out in Foreign Affairs, the
U.S.-backed post-coup government "rewarded coup loyalists with top ministries," opening the door for further "violence and anarchy."
The homicide rate in Honduras, already the highest in the world, increased by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011; political repression,
the murder of opposition political candidates, peasant organizers and LGBT activists increased and continue to this day. Femicides
skyrocketed. The violence and insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized institutional collapse. Drug-related violence has worsened
amid allegations of rampant corruption in Honduras' police and government. While the gangs are responsible for much of the violence,
Honduran security forces have engaged in a wave of killings and other human rights crimes with impunity.
Despite this, however, both under Clinton and Kerry, the State Department's response to the violence and military and police
impunity has largely been silence, along with continued U.S. aid to Honduran security forces. In "Hard Choices," Clinton describes
her role in the aftermath of the coup that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is significant both for the
confession of an important truth and for a crucial false testimony.
First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office.
"In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa
in Mexico," Clinton writes. "We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could
be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot."
Clinton's position on Latin America in her bid for the presidency is another example of how the far right exerts disproportionate
influence on US foreign policy in the hemisphere. up 24 users have voted. --
Disclaimer: No Russian, living or dead, had anything to do with the posting of this proudly home-grown comment
@snoopydawg@snoopydawg
Obama, Hillary and the rest of that administration knew it was a coup because that was the goal.
"..4. (C) In our view, none of the above arguments has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution. Some are outright
false. Others are mere supposition or ex-post rationalizations of a patently illegal act. Essentially: --
the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the country;
-- Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a Honduran president;
-- Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process;
-- the purported "resignation" letter was a fabrication and was not even the basis for Congress's action of June 28; and
-- Zelaya's arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition
on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process. " https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TEGUCIGALPA645_a.html
That evil woman thinks she has the right to preach to others about how to handle the very fallout from the horrific disasters
that she HERself created? Hillary, look in the mirror, you evil woman.
Clinton said rightwing populists in the west met "a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do, and
where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality.
" The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king or
other leader and maybe people are just tired of it. They don't want that much responsibility and freedom. They want to be told
what to do and where to go and how to live and only given one version of reality.
"I don't know why at this moment that is so attractive to people, but it's a serious threat to our freedom and our democratic
institutions, and it goes very deep and very far and we've got to do a better job of shining a light on it and trying to combat
it."
This arrogance of looking down on the populace is very part and parcel of the neoliberal attitude of the ruling class takes
to the rest of us peons. They created this unreality for the American people and have suppressed our right to know what is really
happening in the world. Obama destroyed the Occupy Movement with violent police attacks and kettling. And then disgustingly, Clinton
comes out with her hubristic victim blaming.
The Clintons are nearly single handedly responsible for much of the destruction of the American middle class and the repression
of poor and black people under Bill and the violent destruction of many countries under Hillary. And yet neither Clinton is willing
to own up for all the human misery that they have caused wherever they go. Unfortunately, the one place they refuse to go is just
away forever.
The belief that HRC & her circle are principled & progressive is just as fictitious as the belief that they lost to a reality
TV host because of stolen emails, social media trolls, & a (fictitious) conspiracy between the reality TV host & the Kremlin:
https://t.co/iyTC1M6uws
Clinton says Europe should make clear that "we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge & support." Isn't this
the attitude we denounce Trump for? Speaking of irony, Clinton's regime wars in Libya & Syria (& Iraq, indirectly) fueled the
migration she wants to stop. https://t.co/CIkkGRRKNd
This ego-maniac sees the world's problems - which she had a huge hand in creating - only through the lens of her electability.
Apparently, the only problems the world has are the one's that keep her from sitting in the Oval Office. Everything else is
fine. She is deplorable.
That evil woman thinks she has the right to preach to others about how to handle the very fallout from the horrific disasters
that she HERself created? Hillary, look in the mirror, you evil woman.
Clinton said rightwing populists in the west met "a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do,
and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality.
" The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king
or other leader and maybe people are just tired of it. They don't want that much responsibility and freedom. They want to
be told what to do and where to go and how to live and only given one version of reality.
"I don't know why at this moment that is so attractive to people, but it's a serious threat to our freedom and our democratic
institutions, and it goes very deep and very far and we've got to do a better job of shining a light on it and trying to
combat it."
This arrogance of looking down on the populace is very part and parcel of the neoliberal attitude of the ruling class takes
to the rest of us peons. They created this unreality for the American people and have suppressed our right to know what is
really happening in the world. Obama destroyed the Occupy Movement with violent police attacks and kettling. And then disgustingly,
Clinton comes out with her hubristic victim blaming.
The Clintons are nearly single handedly responsible for much of the destruction of the American middle class and the repression
of poor and black people under Bill and the violent destruction of many countries under Hillary. And yet neither Clinton is
willing to own up for all the human misery that they have caused wherever they go. Unfortunately, the one place they refuse
to go is just away forever.
@gulfgal98 Because they just HAVE to get a rich, far-right, patriarchal white woman elected at any cost for the sake
of 'making history'. If these idiots really wanted to make history, they'd work like hell to put someone in charge who actually
had the balls to hang the pigs and their collaborators for their crimes.
The belief that HRC & her circle are principled & progressive is just as fictitious as the belief that they lost to a
reality TV host because of stolen emails, social media trolls, & a (fictitious) conspiracy between the reality TV host &
the Kremlin: https://t.co/iyTC1M6uws
Clinton says Europe should make clear that "we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge & support." Isn't
this the attitude we denounce Trump for? Speaking of irony, Clinton's regime wars in Libya & Syria (& Iraq, indirectly)
fueled the migration she wants to stop. https://t.co/CIkkGRRKNd
This ego-maniac sees the world's problems - which she had a huge hand in creating - only through the lens of her electability.
Apparently, the only problems the world has are the one's that keep her from sitting in the Oval Office. Everything else
is fine. She is deplorable.
A new collection of essays, edited by former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, clearly shows
that it is the U.S. that is largely responsible for the poverty and suffering in these very
nations, says Robert Fantina.
By Robert Fantina
In two years, the world has become
accustomed to being shocked by the words and actions of United States President Donald Trump.
In January of this year, he again showed his lack of diplomacy, tack and common decency, when
he referred to many poorer countries as "sh*ithole countries", asking, "Why do we want all
these people from sh*thole countries coming here?" Former member of the House of
Representatives Cynthia McKinney, in the new book she has edited, How the US Creates 'Sh*thole' Countries ,
(Clarity Press) has gathered a collection of essays, including one of her own, that clearly
shows that it is the U.S. that is largely responsible for the poverty and suffering in these
very nations.
The first series of essays describes U.S. foreign policy, and its true motives. In the
essay, The End of Washington's 'Wars on the Cheap' , The Saker sums up U.S. foreign
policy as follows: "Here's the template for typical Empire action: find some weak country,
subvert it, accuse it of human right violations, slap economic sanctions, trigger riots and
intervene militarily in 'defense' of 'democracy', 'freedom' and 'self-determination' (or some
other combo of equally pious and meaningless concepts)." The hypocrisy of such a policy is
obvious. A weak and vulnerable nation is victimized by a far more powerful one. The U.S. has
done this countless times in its history, and there appears to be no appetite in the government
to change.
This introduction and explanation of U.S. foreign policy is followed by essays on some, but
certainly not all, of the countries that have been victimized by the United States, usually
following this template. As McKinney says in her essay, Somalia: Is Somalia the U.S.
Template for All of Africa , " while mouthing freedom, democracy, and liberty, the United
States has denied these very aspirations to others, especially when it inconvenienced the US or
its allies. In Mozambique and Angola, the US stood with Portugal until it was the Portuguese
people, themselves, who threw off their government and voted in a socialist government that
vowed to free Portugal of its colonies."
In the essay, How the U.S. Perpetuates the Palestinian Tragedy', Sami Al-Arian
writes:
" It might be understandable, if detestable, for Israel and its Zionist defenders to
circulate false characterizations of history and myths to advance their political agenda. But
it is incomprehensible, indeed reprehensible, for those who claim to advocate the rule of
law, believe in the principle of self-determination, and call for freedom and justice to fall
for this propaganda or to become its willing accomplices. In following much of American
political leaders' rhetoric or media coverage of the conflict, one is struck by the lack of
historical context, the deliberate disregard of empirical facts, and the contempt for
established legal constructs and precedents."
The U.S. leads in these distortions, with its
officials proclaiming, each time that Israel bombs Gaza, that "Israel has a right to defend
itself". There is hardly mention of the brutal, illegal occupation and blockade; never a
discussion of the fact that Palestine has no army, navy or air force, and Israel's military is
one of the world's most powerful thanks to the U.S. It is never stated that international law
allows an occupied people to resist the occupation in any way possible, including armed
struggle. The countless United Nations resolutions condemning Israeli actions in Palestine are
ignored by U.S. officials.
Once again, U.S. hypocrisy is on very public display.
The third section of this informative book describes the United States' mostly-successful
efforts to camouflage its vile intentions and international crimes. Christopher Black, in his
essay Western Imperialism and the Use of Propaganda", clearly articulates how this is
done:
" The primary concern they [U.S. government officials] have, in order to preserve their
control, is for the preservation of the new feudal mythology that they have created: that the
world is a dangerous place, that they are the protectors, that the danger is omnipresent,
eternal, and omnidirectional, comes from without, and comes from within. The mythology is
constructed and presented through all media; journals, films, television, radio, music,
advertising, books, the internet in all its variety. All available information systems are used
to create and maintain scenarios and dramas to convince the people that they, the protectors,
are the good and all others are the bad. We are bombarded with this message incessantly."
Our memories are short, indeed, if we have forgotten both President George W. Bush and his
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, telling the world from the United Nations the blatant lie
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, threatening civilization. We are not paying
attention if we are unaware of the many innuendos given of the 'dangers' of all Muslims. Yes,
the government fosters fear, proclaiming subtly and not so subtly that there is danger
everywhere, and it is the role of the mighty United States to protect the world, whether or not
such protection is wanted or needed.
Lastly, the U.S. Itself can be described as a 'sh*thole' country. Its many violations of
international law, and crimes against humanity, are summarized by Richard Falk, in his essay
The Sh*thole Phenomenon at Home and Abroad:
" This kind of nationalist pride covered up and blindsided crimes of the greatest severity
that were being committed from the time of the earliest settlements: genocide against native
Americans, reliance on the barbarism of slavery to facilitate profitable cotton production
and the supposedly genteel life style of the Southern plantations. This unflattering national
picture should be enlarged to include the exploitation of the resources and good will of
peoples throughout Latin America, who, once freed from Spanish colonial rule, quickly found
themselves victimized by American gunboat diplomacy that paved the way for American investors
or joined in crushing those bold and brave enough to engage in national resistance against
the abuse of their homelands."
The final essay is the Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human
Rights on his Mission to the United States of America, authored by Philip Alston. While
Trump decries "sh*thole" countries, the conditions that the U.S. put those countries in are not
unknown in the U.S. A few facts from Alston's report will suffice:
The U.S.'s " immense
wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of
its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3
million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty. It has the highest youth poverty
rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest
infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States. Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives
compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are
increasingly prevalent, and it has the world's highest incarceration rate, one of the lowest
levels of voter registrations in among OECD countries and the highest obesity levels in the
developed world." " The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western
countries. The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy
and worsened inequality." " For almost five decades the overall policy response has been
neglectful at best, but the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to
remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even
basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship."
The information in these essays is all rigorously documented with extensive footnotes. The
writing is clear and the facts are presented in a concise manner that is highly beneficial for
the average reader or academic.
For anyone who questions U.S. policies, at home or abroad, and who has perhaps become more
aware of such issues since Trump's election,
says: November 24, 2018 at 5:38 pm
GMT 100 Words @Big Bill They fought that it
was Russia, that was holding them back, and by separating they could quickly achieve Western
European standard of living. The first guy to become president of independent Ukraine promised
people that they were going to "live like France" .in 5 years (!). lol
So their plan was something like this:
step 1: Separate from Russia.
step 2:
step 3: France
Lately, they began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU
membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results Phanar Phantom
You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart ?
are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do
you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?
Your industries are worth ZERO, if you're unable to sell your products, and the Ukraine
struggled to sell its manufactured goods after 1991. Its traditional customer – Russia
began to import Western goods.
You sound like Martyanov. lol It doesn't take any "special qualification" to figure out
that Soviet-era factories were churning out worthless crap – there is a reason why that
system fell apart, you know.
@Felix
Keverich Thanks for confirming that you have zero credentials in any technical field yet
you are somehow posing as someone qualified to talk about industry
Glad you are blocking me you little worm the Ostrich response do you cover your eyes and
ears when your teacher or parent [or caregiver, since you are obviously retarded] says
something that is true but which you don't want to hear ?
As for Soviet era factories churning out 'worthless crap' that would include the world's
best rocket engines, decades ahead of the west's technology ?
@Felix
Keverich Liberast opinion. People with this views destroyed the country, caused massive
displacement and demographic and social catastrophes. People with your views should not be
allowed to the levers of power for the distance of avangard shot. If to follow your logic USA
and China must dismantle and sell as scrap metal their MIC as they both clearly cannot
compete with Russian MIC. National manufacturing of everything is not about competition. It
is about souverenity in everything and national capability to provide own population both
with goods and means to make a living via manufacturing of everything needed. Current
situation with so much of everything made in China is an abomination that hurts too much
people around the globe. People with your views in Russia should be purged and preferably
executed for crimes against former Soviet people.
I find it strange that shamir who professes communist views is paying so much attention to
this basically religious spat about power and money. Wasn't it once th as t that religion is
opium for masses. It is here to keep population down so that it is easily fleeced by thieves.
The only value for Russia in orthodoxy at the moment is that the country completely devote of
ideology as per constitution there must be something to hold people together and give some
meaning to their existence.
Vesti News
Published on 19 Nov 2018
Subscribe to Vesti News
Since Monday, we've been watching Poroshenko's panic. On the one hand, he was throwing rude
tantrums because his project to create a "new Church of Ukraine" didn't go as planned. He
only managed to create a branch of the Constantinople Patriarchate in Kiev, which is not the
division-building thing Poroshenko dreamed of. On the other hand, Ukraine, where it's already
snowing, isn't ready for winter.
My suspicion then that Poroshenko must have intended for this new Church of Ukraine to be
subservient to Kiev so that all its properties could be declared state properties and the
Church's wealth could be Kiev's (and Poroshenko's) for the taking only increased when I saw
this report. Interesting too that Poroshenko only now, near the end of his Presidency, is
selling off the assets he should have sold off at the start of his Presidency in compliance
with Ukrainian law.
Gee; who could ever have imagined such a thing would happen? Russia should handle any
emerging crisis very carefully, because Kiev will want to find a way to blame all Ukraine's
problems on Russia, as usual. Russia might win quite a few allies if it boxes clever.
No need to write Poroshenko's epitaph just yet; he's only sold off a ratty old shipyard
that likely was not making him any money anyway. That's not a bellwether of panic; not yet.
But he is almost certain to lose to Tymoshenko, and she will be a double whammy for Ukraine
because she has no more idea how to solve the problem than does Poroshenko, is steadfastly
loyal to the west although it has done nothing since the glorious Maidan but mess Ukraine up
even more than it already was, with the added bonus that she will probably usher in a
circuses-but-no-bread distraction of gunning for Poroshenko and his government, using the
premise that they are to blame for Ukraine's disintegration. That's broadly true, but
Tymoshenko has no plan at all for what comes after Ukrainians' fury is sated.
"On Nov.14, just a day before the decision to cut assistance, the European Parliament
overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution saying Moldova has become a "state captured by
oligarchic interests" that exert their influence over most parts of Moldova's society. The
country is actually ruled by a small group of tycoons."
Ukraine is actually ruled by a small group of tycoons; according to the European Council
on Foreign Relations (which wants Ukraine to succeed as a western satellite, so you can bet
anything negative about it will be soft-pedaled), the 50 5ichest Ukrainians pre-maidan
controlled 45% of national GDP.
Anyone want to present the case that the situation has improved since its oligarchic
president took power, and used it to continuously enrich himself and his family, maintaining
his status as a wealthy businessman even as he takes the odd moment out now and again to see
how the country's doing? I thought not.
Last year, after the country has had quite a generous spell to throw off the shackles of
its oligarchy, the top FIVE Ukrainian oligarchs alone control 13% of the nation's GDP –
Rinat Akhmetov, Ihor Kolomoyskiy, Victor Pinchuk, Petro Poroshenko and Dmytro Firtash.
Waiting in the wings to take over the helm, Yulia Tymoshenko, once known as 'the Gas
Princess", and another oligarch who has been rich since she was very young, whose past
performance suggests Ukraine is in for another round of nest-feathering and struggle for
financial gain among its wealthy citizens, with not a toss given for the rest.
Think we'll see the EU cut them off from funding any time soon? Me, either.
"... "It's basically a high level of corruption and the rule of man instead of the rule of law" ..."
"... "We're getting a lot of inquiries from various investors, they come to talk to us, and we see the opportunities in Ukraine, but time after time we hear the concerns about the governance." ..."
"... "meaningful progress" ..."
"... "inefficient court system continues to obstruct the administration of justice." ..."
It has been five years to the day since Ukraine's 'Euromaidan' protest movement began,
with anti-government protesters demanding an end to corruption and a closer relationship with
the European Union. But what became of the dream?
On the evening of November 21, 2013, pro-West protesters began flocking to Kiev's Maidan
Square, carrying banners and waving EU flags. Hours earlier, then-president Viktor Yanukovych
had suspended preparations to sign a European Association Agreement, which would have been a
potential step on the road to joining the EU - and a move which Russia had warned would be
"trade suicide" for the post-Soviet state. The West, on the other hand, was determined
to wrangle Ukraine out of Russia's "orbit" and lure it into its own.
Ukraine was facing an economic crossroads. The country was being pulled in two directions,
asked to choose between closer alignment with the EU or Russia. When Yanukovych chose Russia by
refusing to sign the Association Agreement, it sparked outrage within the EU and a protest
movement which would quickly be hijacked and used to engineer a Western-backed coup - a
shortcut to bringing a pro-West government to power.
Such interference, manipulation and exploitation of Ukraine's internal political and
societal divisions was not without consequences. More than 10,000 died during an insurgency in
the eastern regions which began when the ethnic Russian population began to fear it would be
swallowed into an anti-Russia nationalist state backed by Western powers. But the West ignored
dangerous
signs of growing nationalism - and outright Nazi-style fascism - in Ukraine, bargaining
that anything was better than Russia 'winning' in a game of geopolitical chess.
Five years on, what has become of the protesters' dreams to rid Ukraine of corruption and
build an equal, transparent and functional democracy? The sad answer is that Ukraine's
revolution was a disaster which left the country teetering on the edge of becoming a failed
state.
An anti-corruption revolution?
Corruption is still rampant in Ukraine. A recent assessment by the International Monetary
Fund suggested that
corruption wipes about two percent off the country's GDP growth per year.
The IMF and World Bank also scolded the Ukrainian government for the "limited
results" that have been seen in fighting corruption, with no high-level officials
convicted - something which is said to be keeping investors out of the country.
World Bank Country Director for Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine Satu Kahkonen said that
"governance issues" were forcing investors to steer clear. "It's basically a high
level of corruption and the rule of man instead of the rule of law" that have prevailed in
Ukraine, she said. "We're getting a lot of inquiries from various investors, they come to
talk to us, and we see the opportunities in Ukraine, but time after time we hear the concerns
about the governance."
Higher living standards?
Ukraine is also emerging as Europe's poorest
country , with a GDP per capita of just €2,960 - well below Estonia's €22,420 and
Slovenia's €26,590 GDP per capita.
In fact, according to a recent Credit Suisse report, Ukrainians
rank among the world's poorest people, coming a dismal 123rd out of 140 countries, with the
net wealth of the country's citizens lagging behind Bangladesh and Cameroon. Another recent
study by the United Nations Development Program found that, despite continuing economic growth,
60 percent of Ukrainians live below the poverty line.
Less income inequality?
Meanwhile, Ukraine's richest 100 citizens have seen their wealth increase significantly in
the years after the Euromaidan protests. A recent report from the Novoe Vremya magazine
showed
that the wealth of the country's richest people is growing 12 times faster than Ukraine's total
GDP. Pro-West President Petro Poroshenko is the country's sixth richest man, increasing his
wealth by 10 percent to about $1.1 billion, all while average Ukrainians see little or no
improvement in their own living standards or net wealth.
Political reforms?
While some recent reforms in education, pensions and healthcare were welcomed by the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in its l atest country report , there has still been a lack of
"meaningful progress" in the reform of governance and an "inefficient court system
continues to obstruct the administration of justice."
European values?
Scant attention has also been paid by the Ukrainian government - and Western powers and
media - to the increasingly worrying growth of neo-Nazi sentiment in Ukraine. When, in October
2017, Ukraine witnessed its biggest neo-Nazi march in years, Western media all but ignored it. In
fact, in deeds and words, Ukraine's government has almost encouraged this kind of sentiment, by
praising as an "inspiration" the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) fighters who the Nazi
marchers were commemorating. In recent months, mainstream media have done more to acknowledge
this creeping fascism in Ukraine, but the admission comes far too late.
On the world stage, too, Ukraine's pro-West President Petro Poroshenko has faded into
near irrelevance, barely
acknowledged by US President Donald Trump at recent Armistice Day commemorations in Paris,
as geopolitics returned to business-as-usual with Kiev fading from the headlines.
Food scarcity and malnutrition of children under the age of 5, places the Ukraine in
percentage terms lower than Pakistan, Ethiopia, Libya, Iraq .the Ukraine welcomes the Cookie
Monster (stats National Geographic)
Here is how U.S. President Barack Obama proudly, even imperially, described it when
delivering the Commencement address to America's future generals, at West Point Military
Academy, on
28 May 2014 :
The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation . [Every other nation is
therefore 'dispensable'; we therefore now have "Amerika, Amerika über alles, über
alles in der Welt".] That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the
century to come. America must always lead on the world stage. If we don't, no one else
will...
Russia's aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China's
economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle
classes compete with us. [He was here telling these future U.S. military leaders that they
are to fight for the U.S. aristocracy, to help them defeat any nation that resists.] ...
In Ukraine, Russia's recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern
Europe. But this isn't the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia
right away. [He was proud of the U.S. Government's effectiveness at
propaganda, just as Hitler was proud of the German Government's propaganda-effectiveness
under Joseph Goebbels.] Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned
Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our
commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine's economy;
OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine.
No other nation regularly invades other nations that never had invaded it. This is
international aggression. It is the international crime of "War of Aggression" ; and the only
nations which do it nowadays are America and its allies, such as the Sauds, Israel, France, and
UK, which often join in America's aggressions (or, in the case of the Sauds' invasion of Yemen,
the ally initiates an invasion, which the U.S. then joins). America's generals are taught this
aggression, and not only by Obama. Ever since at least George W. Bush, it has been solid U.S.
policy. (Bush even kicked out the U.N.'s weapons-inspectors, so as to bomb Iraq in 2003.)
In other words: a mono-polar world is a world in which one nation stands above international
law, and that nation's participation in an invasion immunizes also each of its allies who join
in the invasion, protecting it too from prosecution, so that a mono-polar world is one in which
the United Nations can't even possibly impose international law impartially, but can impose it
only against nations that aren't allied with the mono-polar power, which in this case is the
United States. Furthermore, because the U.S. regime reigns supreme over the entire world, as it
does, any nations -- such as Russia, China, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua,
Cuba, and Ecuador -- that the U.S. regime (which
has itself been scientifically proven to be a dictatorship ) chooses to treat as an enemy,
is especially disadvantaged internationally. Russia and China, however, are among the five
permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and therefore possess a degree of international
protection that America's other chosen enemies do not. And the people who choose which nations
to identify as America's 'enemies' are America's super-rich and not the entire American
population, because
the U.S. Government is controlled by the super-rich and not by the public .
If one of the five permanent members of the Security Council would table at the U.N. a
proposal to eliminate the immunity that the U.S. regime has, from investigation and prosecution
for any future War of Aggression that it might perpetrate, then, of course, the U.S. and any of
its allies on the Security Council would veto that, but if the proposing nation would then
constantly call to the international public's attention that the U.S. and its allies had
blocked passage of such a crucially needed "procedure to amend the UN
charter" , and that this fact means that the U.S. and its allies constitute fascist regimes
as was understood and applied against Germany's fascist regime, at the Nuremberg Tribunal in
1945, then possibly some members of the U.S.-led gang (the NATO portion of it, at least) would
quit that gang, and the U.S. global dictatorship might end, so that there would then become a
multi-polar world, in which democracy could actually thrive.
Democracy can only shrivel in a mono-polar world, because all other nations then are simply
vassal nations, which accept Obama's often-repeated dictum that all other nations are
"dispensable" and that only the U.S. is not. Even the UK would actually gain in freedom, and in
democracy, by breaking away from the U.S., because it would no longer be under the U.S. thumb
-- the thumb of the global aggressor-nation.
Only one global poll has ever been taken of the question "Which
country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?" and it found
that, overwhelmingly, by a three-to-one ratio above the second-most-often named country, the
United States was identified as being precisely that, the top threat to world-peace . But then,
a few years later, another (though less-comprehensive) poll was taken on a similar question,
and it produced
similar results . Apparently, despite the effectiveness of America's propagandists, people
in other lands recognize quite well that today's America is a more successful and
longer-reigning version of Hitler's Germany. Although modern America's propaganda-operation is
far more sophisticated than Nazi Germany's was, it's not entirely successful. America's
invasions are now too common, all based on lies, just like Hitler's were.
On November 9th, Russian Television headlined "'Very insulting': Trump bashes
Macron's idea of European army for protection from Russia, China & US" and reported
that "US President Donald Trump has unloaded on his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, calling
the French president's idea of a 'real European army,' independent from Washington, an insult."
On the one hand, Trump constantly criticizes France and other European nations for allegedly
not paying enough for America's NATO military alliance, but he now is denigrating France for
proposing to other NATO members a decreasing reliance upon NATO, and increasing reliance,
instead, upon the
Permanent Structured Cooperation (or PESCO) European military alliance , which was begun on
11 December 2017, and which currently has "25 EU Member States participating: Austria, Belgium,
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden." Those are the European nations that are now on the path
to eventually quitting NATO.
Once NATO is ended, the U.S. regime will find far more difficult any invasions such as of
Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, Yemen 2016-, and maybe even such as America's bloody coup
that overthrew the democratically elected Government of Ukraine and installed a racist-fascist or
nazi anti-Russian regime there in 2014 . All of these U.S. invasions (and coup) brought to
Europe millions of refugees and enormously increased burdens upon European taxpayers. Plus,
America's economic sanctions against both Russia and Iran have hurt European companies (and the
U.S. does almost no business with either country, so is immune to that, also). Consequently,
today's America is clearly Europe's actual main enemy. The continuation of NATO is actually
toxic to the peoples of Europe. Communism and the Soviet Union and its NATO-mirroring Warsaw
Pact military alliance, all ended peacefully in 1991, but
the U.S. regime has secretly continued the Cold War, now against Russia , and is
increasingly focusing its "regime-change" propaganda against Russia's
popular democratic leader, Vladimir Putin, even though this U.S. aggression against Russia
could mean a world-annihilating nuclear war.
Europe's desire to create its own army and stop relying on Washington for defense is not
only understandable, but would be "positive" for the multipolar world, Vladimir Putin said
days after Donald Trump ripped into it.
" Europe is a powerful economic union and it is only natural that they want to be
independent and sovereign in the field of defense and security," Putin told RT in Paris where
world leader gathered to mark the centenary of the end of WWI.
He also described the potential creation of a European army "a positive process," adding
that it would "strengthen the multipolar world." The Russian leader even expressed his
support to French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently championed this idea by saying that
Russia's stance on the issue "is aligned with that of France" to some extent.
Macron recently revived the ambitious plans of creating a combined EU military force by
saying that it is essential for the security of Europe. He also said that the EU must become
independent from its key ally on the other side of the Atlantic, provoking an angry reaction
from Washington.
Once NATO has shrunk to include only the pro-aggression and outright nazi European nations, such as
Ukraine (after the U.S. gang accepts Ukraine into NATO, as it almost certainly then would
do), the EU will have a degree of freedom and of democracy that it can only dream of today, and
there will then be a multi-polar world, in which the leaders of the U.S. will no longer enjoy
the type of immunity from investigation and possible prosecution, for their invasions, that
they do today. The result of this will, however, be catastrophic for the top 100
U.S. 'defense' contractors , such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon,
because then all of those firms' foreign sales except to the Sauds, Israel and a few other
feudal and fascist regimes, will greatly decline. Donald Trump is doing everything he can to
keep the Sauds to the agreements he reached with them back in 2017 to buy
$404 billion of U.S. weaponry over the following 10 years . If, in addition, those firms
lose some of their European sales, then the U.S. economic boom thus far in Trump's Presidency
will be seriously endangered. So, the U.S. regime, which is run by the owners
of its 'defense'-contractors , will do all it can to prevent this from happening.
"... Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts ..."
"... The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people were killed in the course of the three conflicts. ..."
"... Civilians make up over half of the roughly 500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as well. ..."
"... This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011. ..."
Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts
Brown University has released a new study on the cost
in lives of America's Post-9/11 Wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people
were killed in the course of the three conflicts.
This includes combatant deaths and civilian deaths in fighting and war violence. Civilians make up over half of the roughly
500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as
well.
This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly
in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of
the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011.
The report also notes that over 60,000 US troops were either killed or wounded in the course of the wars. This includes 6,951
US military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.
The Brown study also faults the US for having done very little in the last 17 years to provide transparency to the country about
the scope of the conflicts, concluding that they are "inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution
and progress."
"... Union Jackboot: What Your Media and Professors Don't Tell You About British Foreign Policy ..."
"... There seems to be a consensus that we need a strong military because Russia is on the rise. What do you think about that rationale? ..."
"... What about military threats? ..."
"... So we've extended NATO to pretty much the Russian border? But there's a hard border there. Everyone knows we're never going to attack Russia, both for reasons of morality and self-preservation. So maybe this situation is safer than you imply. ..."
"... Brexit White Paper ..."
"... T. J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at Plymouth University's Cognition Institute and the author of several books. ..."
"... Matthew Alford teaches at Bath University in the UK and has also written several books. Their latest is ..."
"... The Rise and Fall of the British Empire ..."
"... Bolshevism and Imperial Sedition ..."
"... Power without Responsibility ..."
"... Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot ..."
"... Statement for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community ..."
"... Vision for 2020 ..."
"... Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future ..."
"... The New Atlanticist ..."
"... The United Kingdom's relations with Russia ..."
Alford: There seems to be a consensus that we need a strong military because Russia is on the rise. What do you think about
that rationale?
Coles: There's no consensus, except among European and American elites. Europe and America are not the world.
There are a lot of issues to consider with regards to Russia. Is it a threat? If so to whom? What kind of threat is Russia? So
let's consider these questions carefully. As far as the British establishment is concerned, Russia is an ideological threat because
it is a major power with a substantial population. It's also self-reliant where oil and gas is concerned, unlike Britain. So there's
lots of potential for Russian political ideology to undermine Britain's status. In fact, there are European Council on Foreign Relations
papers saying that Putin's Russia presents an "ideological alternative" to the EU.
[i] And that's dangerous.
Britain, or more accurately its policymaking elites, have considered Russia a significant enemy for over a century. Under the
Tsar, the so-called Great Game was a battle for strategic resources, trading routes, and so on. The historian Lawrence James calls
this period the first Cold War, which went "hot" with the Crimean War (1853-56).
[ii] Britain had a mixed relationship with
the Tsars because, on the one hand, theirs' were repressive regimes and Britain tended to favour repressive regimes, hence their
brief alliance with Russia's enemy, the Ottomans. On the other hand, Russia was a strategic threat to Britain's imperial interests,
and thus the Crimean War (1853-56).
When the Bolsheviks took over Russia, beginning 1917, the relationship became much less ambiguous – Russians, and especially Bolsheviks,
were clearly the enemy. Their ideology posed a threat internally. So Winston Churchill, who began as a Liberal and became a Conservative,
considered the Labour Party, which was formed in 1900, as basically a front for Bolsheviks.
[iii] That shows the level of paranoia among
elites. The Labour Party, at least at the beginning, was a genuine, working man's political organisation – women couldn't vote then,
remember. So by associating this progressive, grassroots party representing the working classes as an ideological ally or even puppet
of the brutal Bolshevik regime, the Tories had an excuse to undermine the power of organised, working people. So you had the Zinoviev
letter in 1924, which we now know was a literal conspiracy between the secret services and elements of the Tory party to fabricate
a link between Labour and Moscow. And it famously cost Labour the general election, since the right-wing, privately-owned media ran
with the story as though it was real. It's an early example of fake news.
[iv]
That's the ideological threat that Russia has posed, historically. But where there's a threat, there's an opportunity. The British
elites exploited the "threat" then and as they do today by associating organised labour with evil Bolshevism and, in doing so, alienate
the lower classes from their own political interests. Suddenly, we've all got to be scared of Russia, just like in 1917. And let's
not forget that Britain used chemical weapons – M-Devices, which induced vomiting – against the Bolsheviks. Chemical weapons were
"the right medicine for the Bolshevist," in Churchill's words. This was in 1919, as part of the Allied invasion of Russia in support
of the White Army. [v]
So if we're talking about the historical balance of forces and cause and effect, Britain not Russia initiated the use of chemical
weapons against others. But this history is typically inverted to say that Russia poses a threat to the West, hence all the talk
about Novichok, the Skripals, and Dawn Sturgess, the civilian who supposedly came into contact with Novichok and died in hospital
a few days later.
The next question: What sort of threat is Russia? According to the US Army War College, since the collapse of the Soviet
Union and since pro-US, pro-"free market" President Boris Yeltsin resigned in 1999, Russia has pursued so-called economic nationalism.
And the US doesn't like this because markets suddenly get closed and taxes are raised against US corporations.
[vi] That's the real threat. But you can't
tell the public that: that we hate Russia because they aren't doing what we say. If you look through the military documents, you
can find almost nothing about security threats against the US in terms of Russian
expansion, except in the sense that "security" means operational freedom. You can find references to Russia's nuclear weapons,
though, which are described as defensive, designed "to counter US forces and weapons systems."
[vii] Try finding that on the BBC. I should
mention that even "defensive" nukes can be launched accidentally.
The real goal with regards to Russia is maintaining US economic hegemony and the culture of open "free markets" that goes with
it, while at the same time being protectionist in real life. (US protectionism didn't start under Trump, by the way.) Liberal media
like the New York Times run sarcastic articles about Russian state oil and gas being a front for Putin and his cronies.
And yes, that may be true. But what threat is Russia to the US if it has a corrupt government? The threat is closing its markets
to the US. The US is committed to what its military calls Full Spectrum Dominance. So the world needs to be run in a US-led neoliberal
order, in the words of the US military, "to protect US interests and investment."
[viii] But this cannot be done if you have
"economic nationalism," like China had until the "reforms" of the '70s and '80s, and still has today to some extent. Russia and China
aren't military threats. The global population on the whole knows this, even though the domestic US and British media say the opposite.
Alford: What about military threats?
Coles: The best sources you can get are the US military records. Straight from the horse's mouth. The military plans for war and
defence. They have contingencies for when political situations change. So they know what they're talking about. There's a massive
divide between reality, as understood from the military records, and media and political rhetoric. Assessments by the US Army War
College, for instance, said years ago that any moves by NATO to support a Western-backed government in Ukraine would provoke Russia
into annexing Crimea. They don't talk about Russia spontaneously invading Ukraine and annexing it, which is the image we get from
the media. The documents talk about Russia reacting to NATO provocation.
[ix]
If you look at a map, you see Russia surrounded by hostile NATO forces. The media don't discuss this dangerous and provocative
situation, except the occasional mention of, say, US-British-Polish war-gaming on the border with Russia. When they do mention it,
they say it's for "containment," the containment of Russia. But to contain something, the given thing has to be expanding. But the
US military – like the annual threat assessments to Congress – say that Russia's not expanding, except when provoked. So at the moment
as part of its NATO mission, the UK is training Polish and Ukrainian armed forces, has deployed troops in Poland and Estonia, and
is conducting military exercises with them.
[x]
Imagine if Scotland ceded from the UK and the Russians were on our border conducting military exercises, supposedly to deter a
British invasion of Scotland. That's what we're doing in Ukraine. Britain's moves are extremely dangerous. In the 1980s, the UK as
part of NATO conducted the exercise, Operation Able Archer, which envisaged troop build-ups between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries.
Now-declassified records show that the Russians briefly mistook this exercise for a real-world scenario. That could have escalated
into nuclear war. This is very serious. [xi]
But the biggest player is the USA. It's using the threat of force and a global architecture of hi-tech militarism to shape a neoliberal
order. Britain is slavishly following its lead. I doubt that Britain would position forces near Russia were it not for the USA. Successive
US administrations have or are building a missile system in Europe and Turkey. They say it's to deter Iran from firing Scud missiles
at Europe. But it's pointed at Russia. It's a radar system based in Romania and Turkey, with a battery of Patriot missiles based
in Poland. The stationing of missiles there provoked Russia into moving its mobile nuclear weapons up to the border in its Kaliningrad
exclave, as it warned it would do in 2008.
[xii] Try to find any coverage of that in the media, except for a few articles in the print media here or there. If Western media
were interested in survival, there would be regular headlines: "NATO provoking Russia."
But the situation in Ukraine is really the tipping point. Consider the equivalent. Imagine if Russia was conducting military exercises
with Canada or Mexico, and building bases there. How would the US react? It would be considered an extreme threat, a violation of
the UN Charter, which prohibits threats against sovereign states.
Alford: So we've extended NATO to pretty much the Russian border? But there's a hard border there. Everyone knows we're never
going to attack Russia, both for reasons of morality and self-preservation. So maybe this situation is safer than you imply.
Coles: There's no morality involved. States are abstract, amorphous entities comprised of dominant minorities and subjugated majorities
who are conditioned to believe that they are relatively free and prosperous. The elites of those states act both in their self-interests
– career, peer-pressure, kickbacks, and so on – and in the interests of their class, which is of course tied to international relations
because their class thrives on profiting from resource exploitation. So you can't talk about morality in this context. Only individuals
can behave morally. The state is made up of individuals, of course, but they're acting against the interests of the majority. As
we speak, they are acting immorally – or at least amorally – but creating the geopolitical conditions that imperil each
and every one of us.
As for invasion, we're not going to invade Russia. This isn't 1918. Russia has nuclear weapons and can deter an invasion. But
that's not the point. Do we want to de-escalate an already tense geopolitical situation or make it worse to the point where an accident
happens? So while it's not about invading Russia directly, the issue is about attacking what are called Russia's "national interests."
Russia's "national interests" are the same as the elites' of the UK. National interest doesn't mean the interests of the public.
It means the interests of the policymaking establishment and the corporations. For example, the Theresa May government sacrificed
its own credibility to ensure that its Brexit White Paper (2018) appeased both the interests of the food and manufacturing
industries that want a soft Brexit – easy trade with the EU – and the financial services sector which wants a hard Brexit – freedom
from EU regulation. Everyone else be damned. That's the "national interest."
So for its real "national interest," Russia wants to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence because its oil and gas to Europe
pass through Ukraine. About 80% of Russia's export economy is in the oil and gas sector. It's already had serious political tensions
with Ukraine, which on several occasions hasn't paid its energy bills, so Russia has cut supplies. If Europe can bump Ukraine into
its own sphere of influence it has more leverage over Russia. This is practically admitted in Parliamentary discussions by Foreign
Office ministers, and so forth. [xiii]
Again, omitted by the media. Also, remember that plenty of ethnic Russians live in eastern Ukraine. In addition, Russia has a naval
base in Crimea. That's not to excuse its illegal action in annexing Ukraine, it's to highlight the realpolitik missing in
the media's coverage of the situation.
T. J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at Plymouth University's Cognition Institute and the author of several books.
Matthew Alford teaches at Bath University in the UK and has also written several books. Their latest is
Union Jackboot(Até Books).
[ii] 'Anglo-Russian relations were severely
strained; what was in effect a cold war lasted from the late 1820s to the beginning of the next century'. The Crimean War seems to
have set a precedent for today. James writes:
[It] was an imperial war, the only one fought by Britain against a European power during the nineteenth century, although some
would have regarded Russia as essentially an Asiatic power. No territory was at stake; the war was undertaken solely to guarantee
British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean and, indirectly, to forestall any threat to India which might have followed Russia
replacing Britain as the dominant power in the Middle East.
Lawrence James (1997) The Rise and Fall of the British Empire London: Abacus, pp. 180-82.
All these strikes and rumours of strikes and threats of strikes and loss and suffering caused by them; all this talk of revolution
and "direct action" have deeply offended most of the British people. There is a growing feeling that a considerable section of
organized Labour is trying to tyrannize over the whole public and to bully them into submission, not by argument, not by recognized
political measures, but by brute force
But if we can do little for Russia [under the Bolsheviks], we can do much for Britain. We do not want any of these experiments
here
Whether it is the Irish murder gang or the Egyptian vengeance society, or the seditious extremists in India, or the arch-traitors
we have at home, they will feel the weight of the British arm.
A settlement of relations between the two countries [UK and Russia] will assist in the revolutionising of the international
and British proletariat, [and] make it possible for us to extend and develop the propaganda and ideas of Leninism in England and
the colonies.
It also says that 'British workmen' have 'inclinations to compromise' and that rapprochement will eventually lead to domestic
'[a]rmed warfare'. It was leaked by the services to the Conservative party and then to the media. Richard Norton-Taylor (1999) 'Zinoviev
letter was dirty trick by MI6' Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/1999/feb/04/uk.politicalnews6
and Louise Jury (1999) 'Official Zinoviev letter was forged' Independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/official-zinoviev-letter-was-forged-1068600.html
. For media coverage at the time, see James Curran and Jean Seaton (1997) Power without Responsibility London: Routledge,
p. 52.
[v] Paul F. Walker (2017) 'A Century
of Chemical Warfare: Building a World Free of Chemical Weapons' Conference: One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment,
Consequences pp. 379-400 and Giles Milton (2013) Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot
London: Hodder, eBook.
[vi] 'The Russian Federation has shown
repeatedly that common values play almost no role in its consideration of its trading partners', meaning the US and EU. 'It often
builds relationships with countries that most openly thwart Western values of free markets and democracy', notably Iran and Venezuela.
'In this regard, the Russian Federation behaves like "Russia Incorporated." It uses its re-nationalized industries to further its
wealth and influence, the latter often at the expense of the EU and the U.S.'. Colonel Richard J. Anderson (2008) 'A History of President
Putin's Campaign to Re-Nationalize Industry and the Implications for Russian Reform and Foreign Policy' Senior Service College, US
Army War College, Pennsylvania: Carlisle Barracks, p. 52.
[vii] Daniel R. Coats (2017) Statement
for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington,
DC: Office of the Director of
[ix] The document also says: 'a replay
of the West-sponsored coup against pro-Russian elites could result in a split, or indeed multiple splits, of the failed Ukraine,
which would open a door for NATO intervention'.Pavel K. Baev (2011) 'Russia's security relations with the United States: Futures
planned and unplanned' in Stephen J. Blank (ed.) Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future Strategic Studies Institute
Pennsylvania: Carlisle Barracks, p. 170, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1087.pdf.
[xi] For example, Nate Jones, Thomas
Blanton and Christian F. Ostermann (2016) 'Able Archer 83: The Secret History' Nuclear Proliferation International History Project
Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/able-archer-83-the-secret-history
.
[xii] It was reported in the ultra-right,
neo-con press at the time that:
[Russian] President Dmitri Medvedev announced in his first state-of-the-nation address plans to deploy the short-range SS-26
("Iskander") missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad if the U.S. goes ahead with its European Ballistic Missile Defense
System (BMDS). Medvedev told parliament that the deployment would "neutralize" U.S. plans for a missile defense shield based in
Poland and the Czech Republic [now in Romania), which the U.S. claims as vital in defending against missile attacks from 'rogue
states' such as Iran.
Neil Leslie (2008) 'The Kaliningrad Missile Crisis' The New Atlanticist , available at http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-kaliningrad-missile-crisis.
[xiii] For example, a Parliamentary
inquiry into British-Russian relations says of the newly-imposed US-British ally in Ukraine:
President Poroshenko's Government is more openly committed to economic reform and anti-corruption than any previous Ukrainian
Administration. The reform agenda has made considerable progress and has enjoyed some successes including police reform, liberalisation
of the energy market and the launch of an online platform for government procurement
The annexation of Crimea also resulted in a ban on importing products from Crimea, on investing in or providing services linked
to tourism and on exporting certain goods for use in the transport, telecoms and energy sectors.
This is the net result of neoliberalism enforced debt slavery for the country. And there is no chances for Ukrainians to
climb back from this debt hole.
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine's SSS has acknowledged that so far this year, the population has already decreased by 122,000. ..."
"... While the country's low birth rate of approximately 1 birth for 1.5 deaths is a contributing factor to the country's depopulation, emigration is by far the biggest factor. ..."
"... Between 2002 and 2017, an estimated 6.3 million Ukrainians emigrated with no plans to return. ..."
"... Through 2015 and 2017, as a result of the ongoing war in the Donbass region and the plunging value of the Ukrainian hryvnia, migration increased notably: 507,000 people went to Poland; 147,000 to Italy; 122,000 to the Czech Republic; 23,000 to the United States; and 365,000 to Russia or Belarus. ..."
"... The easing of visa-free travel by the European Union (EU) in September 2017 only increased the flow of Ukrainians to countries such as Poland, which is facing its own demographic crisis and in need of workers. In 2018 alone, more than 3 million Ukrainians applied for passports that would allow them to work in Poland. Poland is the only EU country that allows Ukrainians to obtain seasonal work visas with just a passport. Ukrainians have received 81.7% of all work visas issued in Poland this year. ..."
"... Between 1 and 2 million Ukrainian workers now reside in Poland, where they are often forced to take jobs "under the table," are easily exploited by employers, and work in dangerous conditions. Many Ukrainian laborers are recruited to Poland by scam offers of employment, only to then find themselves stranded and forced to work for whatever wage they can get. ..."
"... While Russia is constantly demonized in the Ukrainian and Western press as the eternal enemy of Ukraine, 2 million Ukrainian citizens now live or work in Russia. According to Olga Kirilova, between 2014 and 2017, 312,000 Ukrainians were granted Russian citizenship and Ukrainians make up the vast majority of immigrants to Russia. ..."
"... The migration of Ukrainian workers abroad has reached such a level that remittances from migrants now constitute 3 to 4 percent of the country's GDP. They exceed the amount of foreign investment in Ukraine. Nonetheless, such transfers are not nearly enough to make up for the negative impact of the currency's falling value, inflation, and the disappearance of skilled workers. ..."
"... The Ukrainian ruling class acknowledges that the country is in serious trouble. "One of the main risks of the current scenario is the continuation of the outflow of labor from Ukraine, which will create a further increase in the imbalance between demand and supply in the labor market," noted a report from the country's national bank. ..."
"... The Corrupt, extreme right wing government of Poroshenko, that has driven large proportions of the Ukrainian population into poverty and despair has only been able to take power and remain I office thanks to US imperialism and Angela Merkel's scheming and regime change program. ..."
"... Popular support for the "maidan" in the Ukraine was based on misleading and dishonest claims by pro EU and Pro US opportunistic political operators that such "regime change" would lead to total integration with Europe and open borders.... ..."
"... One of the most horrific consequences of the dismantling of the Soviet Union was the explosion of sex trafficking and very large numbers of Ukrainian women were caught up in this horrific exploitation and continue to be. ..."
"... Oh the benefits of US installed dictatorships. ..."
"... "Welcome to Europe, Ukraine. Here are your rubber gloves and toilet cleaning brush. Oh, you're a young woman? The red light district is three blocks that way". ..."
"... In Baltic states after being "freed from communism and Soviet occupation" the population decline is also very prominent, the same reasons as in Ukraine too. ..."
As fascist far-right nationalist groups regularly parade through the country demanding "Ukraine for Ukrainians," Ukraine faces
a massive depopulation crisis. Millions of people of all ethnicities are leaving the country, fleeing poverty and war.
Since the restoration of capitalism in 1991, the overall population of Ukraine has declined from just over 52 million to approximately
42 million today, a decrease of nearly 20 percent. If the separatist-controlled provinces of the Donbass region and Crimea are excluded,
it is estimated that just 35 million people now live in the area controlled by the government of Petro Porosehnko.
Ukrainian governments, including the current one, have been loath to carry out an official census, as it is widely believed that
the population estimates reported by the country's State Statistics Service (SSS) are inflated by including deceased individuals.
One aim of this is to rig elections. An official country-wide census has not been held since 2001. In late 2015, the Poroshenko government
postponed the 2016 census until 2020.
Despite the lack of reliable official numbers, all independent reports point to a sharp reduction in the population. According
to Ukraine's Institute of Demography at the Academy of Sciences, by 2050 only 32 million people will live in the country. The World
Health Organization has estimated that the population of the country will drop even further, to just 30 million people.
Ukraine's SSS has acknowledged that so far this year, the population has already decreased by 122,000.
Such data are a testament to the monumental failure of capitalism to provide a standard of living that matches, much less exceeds,
that which existed during the Soviet period over 25 years ago.
While the country's low birth rate of approximately 1 birth for 1.5 deaths is a contributing factor to the country's depopulation,
emigration is by far the biggest factor.
Between 2002 and 2017, an estimated 6.3 million Ukrainians emigrated with no plans to return.
Facing poor employment prospects, deteriorating social and medical services, marauding far-right gangs, and the ever-present
prospect of a full-scale war with Russia, Ukrainian workers are fleeing the country in great numbers, either permanently or as temporary
labor migrants.
According to a report from the Center for Economic Strategy (CES), almost 4 million people, or up to 16% of the working-age population,
are labor migrants. Despite having Ukrainian citizenship and still technically living in Ukraine, they actually reside and work elsewhere.
Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has put the number of Ukrainian migrant workers even higher, at 5 million.
Through 2015 and 2017, as a result of the ongoing war in the Donbass region and the plunging value of the Ukrainian hryvnia, migration
increased notably: 507,000 people went to Poland; 147,000 to Italy; 122,000 to the Czech Republic; 23,000 to the United States; and
365,000 to Russia or Belarus.
The easing of visa-free travel by the European Union (EU) in September 2017 only increased the flow of Ukrainians to countries
such as Poland, which is facing its own demographic crisis and in need of workers. In 2018 alone, more than 3 million Ukrainians
applied for passports that would allow them to work in Poland. Poland is the only EU country that allows Ukrainians to obtain seasonal
work visas with just a passport. Ukrainians have received 81.7% of all work visas issued in Poland this year.
Between 1 and 2 million Ukrainian workers now reside in Poland, where they are often forced to take jobs "under the table," are
easily exploited by employers, and work in dangerous conditions. Many Ukrainian laborers are recruited to Poland by scam offers of
employment, only to then find themselves stranded and forced to work for whatever wage they can get.
While migrant workers in Poland are constantly subjected to anti-immigrant rhetoric from the right-wing PiS government in Warsaw,
the Polish state classifies Ukrainian laborers as "refugees" in order to comply with EU quotas and reject refugees from Syria and
elsewhere.
According to polls of Ukrainian migrants in Poland, over half are planning to move to Germany if the labor market there is ever
open to them.
While Russia is constantly demonized in the Ukrainian and Western press as the eternal enemy of Ukraine, 2 million Ukrainian
citizens now live or work in Russia. According to Olga Kirilova, between 2014 and 2017, 312,000 Ukrainians were granted Russian citizenship
and Ukrainians make up the vast majority of immigrants to Russia.
The dearth of a working-age population in Ukraine is putting further strain on an already struggling pension system. According
to Ukraine's SSS, as a result of widespread labor migration, only 17.8 million out of 42 million Ukrainians are economically active
and paying into the pension system.
The migration of Ukrainian workers abroad has reached such a level that remittances from migrants now constitute 3 to 4 percent
of the country's GDP. They exceed the amount of foreign investment in Ukraine. Nonetheless, such transfers are not nearly enough
to make up for the negative impact of the currency's falling value, inflation, and the disappearance of skilled workers.
The Ukrainian ruling class acknowledges that the country is in serious trouble. "One of the main risks of the current scenario
is the continuation of the outflow of labor from Ukraine, which will create a further increase in the imbalance between demand and
supply in the labor market," noted a report from the country's national bank.
However, the government can do nothing to slow the mass emigration, as it is thoroughly under the control of international finance
capital and committed to implementing the austerity programs demanded by Western states and banks.
Despite assurances from the Poroshenko regime that the economy will improve, the emigration and emptying of the country shows
no signs of slowing.
The Corrupt, extreme right wing government of Poroshenko, that has driven large proportions of the Ukrainian population into
poverty and despair has only been able to take power and remain I office thanks to US imperialism and Angela Merkel's scheming
and regime change program.
Without the working class intervening the only ones remaining in Ukraine will be those unable to leave and those that have
their noses in the trough.
Another excellent report of decaying of artificial entity of Ukraine (and capitalism specializes in collapsing societies) that
never even existed before 1992 in European history and was resurrected ( from brief self declared by Bandera racist state status
in 1941) and funded by Germany, Canada and US only to nurture their Fascist and actual Nazi traditions starting from Doncov to
Bandera terror of hundreds of thousands dead 1941-1948 of OUN-B, UPA and Ukrainian SS, all against Russia, as Ukrainian "Country"
was and is used as a Trojan horse to push Putin to submit to the west even more than he does now.
Pain and suffering of Ukrainian people is enormous as only 5% of population of Ukrainian Nazi thugs terrorist nation like like
Hitler street thugs in 1932-1934. It is tragedy that capitalism instigated, exasperated and augmented and should be a lesson for
the left what nationalism does, divides working class that was rendered powerless in Ukraine as Ukrainian industry tied to Russia
collapsed and forces massive migration and de-cohesion of communities, divisions of working class and eradication of any real
leftist leadership via murder, intimidation and exile.
Just a note. All that anti Russia hoopla after 2014 and ensuing NATO belligerence and warmongering and sanctions all were focused
on so called annexation of Crimea to Russia which was nothing but reunification of land under control of Russia since 1754.
I was shocked watching an episode of Columbo, crime series in 1970s when one of characters proudly referred to California joining
in US 1845 as annexation from Mexico, with no shame or condemnation like hinting that it was international aggression of US as
Alta California was never part of US before that.
Well, it was before 1984 and Orwellian newspeak.
Note that Crimea remained autonomous region, not a part of Russia but part of Russian Federation.
Popular support for the "maidan" in the Ukraine was based on misleading and dishonest claims by pro EU and Pro US opportunistic
political operators that such "regime change" would lead to total integration with Europe and open borders.... That would
have allowed (so the misconception went) Ukrainians to flee the country much more openly with less red tape and hassle at the
borders. So, far from being politically or ideologically supportive of Europe or the US or opportunist/nationalist Ukrainian politicians,
the vast majority of Ukrainians only wanted to be allowed to flee, as they experience it, a social shipwreck
One of the most horrific consequences of the dismantling of the Soviet Union was the explosion of sex trafficking and very
large numbers of Ukrainian women were caught up in this horrific exploitation and continue to be.
Victoria Newland and Geoffrey Pyatt, both US officials, were recorded at the time of the right wing and fascist led coup that
overthrew Russian backed Yanakovic, boasting that Washington had poured $5 billion into Ukraine ensuring that their man, an ex
World Bank executive, was elected.
Since then the most rabid anti working class/ anti Russian governments have ruled the roost.
Only those unable to flee this hell- hole and those whose snout is in the trough will soon be left there. Oh the benefits
of US installed dictatorships.
In addition to emigration, Ukraine's decreasing population is a result of a higher infant mortality rate than surrounding countries.
High infant mortality rates always indicate economic and social stress.
According to The World Bank 2017 figures for infant mortality in that region, the rate per 1,000 births in Ukraine is 7.5 compared
to the following rates in surrounding countries:
Poland - 4.0
Romania - 6.6
Russia - 6.5
Belarus - 2.8
Hungary -3.8
Slovak Republic - 4.6
Only poor Moldova is higher at 13.3
Kinda shot themselves in the foot with their "Revolution of Dignity" fascist coup. "Welcome to Europe, Ukraine. Here are your
rubber gloves and toilet cleaning brush. Oh, you're a young woman? The red light district is three blocks that way".
Life in Crimea must be looking pretty good to them now.
The puppet of the USA, Poroshenko , needs to go, and the USA should get the hell out of the Ukraine plus NATO has no business
being on the borders of Russia. This is all the fault of the USA, And, the current immigration problem world wide is because the
USA bombs countries eviscerating them yet the USA refuses to admit refugees which are fleeing from the USA wars.
In Baltic states after being "freed from communism and Soviet occupation" the population decline is also very prominent, the
same reasons as in Ukraine too.
These same right-wing, fascist Ukrainian Banderovitzes love to yell and scream about the bogus "Holodomor" hoax (which has been
debunked by serious scholars such as Pers Anders Rudling, and others, as well as Thottle). They falsely claim that the USSR tried
to "depopulate" Ukrainians, when they are the ones who have depopulated Ukraine.
Speaking of Ukraine, the Russian sanctions against Ukraine have been announced. Predictably,
Poroshenko considers them to be 'an award', or so he says. I don't know why he feels
qualified to speak for those so honoured, since he was not on the list.
Trade between Russia and Ukraine hit a low of $10.26 Billion in 2016, but struggled back
up to $12.9 Billion last year. Mind you, pre-glorious-Maidan it was more than $50 Billion
annually. Never mind; I'm sure Yurrup will pick up the slack, just like it did after the
glorious Maidan. Amazingly, the New York Times is still referring to Poroshenko as a
'chocolate tycoon', in the same sentence in which it calls Viktor Pinchuk an oligarch.
B, it does seem that the k affair has risen the crisis in Yemen to the foreground just as
many predicted. Thank goodness.
You are correct in that many are looking too far into this as some kind of conspiracy. I
am reminded by this of many who put forth that it made no difference as to who won the prez
election. It did make a difference to the military as well as Hillary's backers in the cIa
and fbI.
The Saudis screwed up and they will get their comeuppance it seems. Russia might be able
to wiggle their way into the middle then, filling the vacuum of uncle Sam at the circle
jerk. The Saudis will have to curtail their operation in Yemen and no quarter will be given
to wahhabi-terrorists by ksa who wish retribution against Russia. Win-win.
Interesting take by Ghassan Kadi on the Saker's blog, for those who still sense a
conspiracy in this. https://thesaker.is/insights-into-the-khashoggi-ordeal-who-and-why/
Goes back to this 'fiance', but adds Gullen to the mix and makes Erdy out to be an
instigator. Good to have a viewpoint from someone who has lived in Sawdi land.
"The Saudis say they are countering Iran, which backs the Houthis. But the Houthis are an indigenous group with legitimate grievances,
and the war has only enhanced Iranian influence . As has been obvious for some time, the only solution is a negotiated settlement.
But the Saudis have done their best to sabotage a U.N.-led peace process. Talks planned for Geneva in September failed when Saudi
leaders
would not grant safe travel guarantees to Houthi leaders." Bezos' editorial board at WaPo
---------------
Beneath the largely specious argument that Saudi Arabia has the US by the cojones economically lies the true factor that
has caused the two countries to be glued together.
This factor is the Israeli success in convincing the US government, and more importantly, the American people, that Iran is a
deadly enemy, a menace to the entire world, a reincarnation of Nazi Germany, and that Saudi Arabia, a country dedicated to medieval
methods of operation, is an indispensable ally in a struggle to save the world from Iran. The successful effort to convince us of
the reality of the Iranian menace reflects the previous successful campaign to convince us all that Iraq was also Nazi Germany come
again.
The Iran information operation was probably conceived at the Moshe Dayan Center or some other Israeli think tank. and then passed
on in the form of learned papers and conferences to the Foreign Ministry, the Mossad and the IDF. After adoption as government policy
the Foreign ministry and Zionist organizations closely linked to media ownership in the US and Europe were tasked for dissemination
of the propaganda themes involved. This has been a brilliantly executed plan. The obvious fact that Iran is not presently a threat
to the US has had little effect in countering this propaganda achievement.
Last Saturday morning, the Philadelphia based commentator Michael Smerconish openly asked on his popular talk show why it is that
US policy favors the Sunni Muslims over the Shia. i.e., Saudi Arabia over Iran. To hear that was for me a first. This was an obvious
defiance of the received wisdom of the age. I can only hope that the man does not lose his show.
It is a great irony that the barbaric murder of a personally rather unpleasant but defiant exiled journalist has caused re-examination
of the basis and wisdom of giving strategic protection to a family run dictatorship. pl
Erdogan called the Khashoggi murder brutal and premeditated, but did not reveal any damning audio or video evidence. Elijah Magnier
surmises Erdogan extracted a heavy payment from both the Saudis and the Americans in exchange for his relative silence. We shall
see if the economic pressure on Turkey dissipates in the coming days and weeks.
It appears the central pillar of the Borg creed, so eloquently and precisely described here by Colonel Lang, will survive this
bout of heretical thinking. Will journalists and other members of the press be able to keep challenging the Borg? With Trump so
thoroughly assimilated into the Borg, will the "resistance" keep the issue of Saudi perfidy alive? I have my doubts. The Israeli
information operations machine is a juggernaut. Few have the stamina and will to resist it. But it is a fight worth fighting.
This months gas tariff for "Ukrainians" increases by 24%!!
The context is that Ukrainian consumers have the lowest gas rate in Europe. Moldovan
households pay more for gas than do Ukrainian ones. Even with a 24% price increase Ukraine will
still have the cheapest gas in Europe for its consumers:
A huge line for free food at the charity kitchen in Kiev can be seen here: http://rusvesna.su/news/1539952343
(those who read Russian can find details in the accompanying news item).
I guess all of this is a great achievement of Maidan. Ukies, please comment.
If you are finding your way out of the dark forest of propaganda there are two speeches by
Putin that I point people toward. First, at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Video
here : Transcript
here
Second, at the UN General Assembly September 2015, Video here : Transcript here .
I fail to see how any rational person could disagree with the sentiments he expresses.
Warning! You may become a Putin-bot!
just watched the Atlantic council's Championing the Frontlines of Freedom: Erasing the
"Grey Zone", only interesting thing to come out of the conference was Kurt Volker's (US
Special Representative for Ukraine) comments;
Escalating sanctions vs Russia every 1-2 months there will be new & expanded
sanctions on Russia.
Stable borders should not be a requirement to be a part of NATO, "Occupied" states can
be taken into NATO and receive support from NATO to liberate themselves (he stressed that
the US would not be escalate the conflict, but how the hell could anyone guarantee
that).
Opposition to Russia is now bipartisan, regardless of the Nov elections, US Senate
& Congress are unified against Russia
when asked how "We" (the Atlantic council) can make political elites care about Baltic
states (plus Ukraine/Georgia), WITHOUT knowing the historical and political details of
these states he, unsurprisingly answered "this is about spreading our liberal values"
(translation: the American people don't need to be informed about the region are changes
are non-negotiable). the long and the short of the 3 hour conference was the new cold war
vs Russia will continue indefinitely, I would say this is the start of another generation
conflict that will last 10-20 years at least
Ok i'l stick my neck out !
It's over for America ! That's my assessment their day is d d d done ! Am basing my view on
the worldwide picture politically, the mind set of the general public I talk to, the many
sites I visit on the net left and right. Plus overall wisdom and overstanding (a Rasta thing)
Empires fall, this one has more than had its day. If it was a buseness what does it produce ?
And at what cost? It just robs other peoples hard earned resources and assets! For all it's
wealth it treats it's own public like dirt milking them dry. It's intelligent public it
curupt's. Nature abbor's greed, and wil correct that imbalance.
I think Putin understands this, and understands as I do 'desperate people do desperate
things' hence his speech.
Censoring the truth on a massive network like the internet is truly impossible and plainly
desperate !!!
Qatar is jubilating! Turkey, too! Saudi Arabia will be criticized and isolated as most GCC
countries would dissaprove and prefer to dissociate from such a crime. Dismembering the body
of a dead moslem man is a very serious crime in Islam.
Kuwait and Bahrein are already cozyng up with Syria, the UAE is slowly moving out the
Yemen war and reviewing ist relation with Syria.
Kashoogi's alleged martyr may save Yemenis lives and may have the Western world faced to
the reality that in the region, the evil is not Iran but their best friend, Saudi Arabia and
its smiling monster MBS.
Kashoogi may have succeeded unintentionally to destabilize MBS and probably trigger his
removal. The USA will have no problem in sacrificing MBS for the sake of keeping the Saudi
milking under control. The only problem will be that it will reflect on Kushner-MBS Grand
Palestinian plan.
Maybe Kashoogi's love for fiancee made him take the risk to get a divorce paper from the
Saudi Arabia consulate and be killed.
@75 Why should Trump make a big issue about some dead Arab? Because he was a journalist?
Trump hates journalists.
If bleeding heart progressives want to make a fuss so be it. He knows his base don't give
a shit about the world outside the USA as long as they buy American arms.
"... Thanks to media, to this day very few people in the West know that towards the end of the 78-day war, US and UK deliberately targeted several completely civilian facilities (bridges, hospitals and schools) and in just a few days of such targeting killed about 200 civilians. ..."
Kiza
says: October
7, 2018 at 7:50 am GMT 500 Words @Quartermaster
I am not going to insult you personally, but as a cheap paid troll you have absolutely no clue
about the subject you are typing about for your Israeli masters. FB has not explained
everything perfectly but what he wrote is correct. It is not true that an airforce would target
radar installations only with HARM missiles, which all NATO countries and Israel have, but in
practice HARM are the only missiles to reliably target mobile air defence. During the attack on
Serbia, US flew more than 90% of NATO missions and it managed to destroy three missile
batteries and one radar station (using HARM). But the mobility of the Serbian immobile air
defences had two major effects:
1) Unlike Iraq, Serbia let NATO bomb targets without always switching on its air defences to be
detected and destroyed; this grossly reduced NATOs air effectiveness because with every bomber
they had to constantly send at least one support plane with jammers, HARMs etc. NATO tried to
claim a virtue out of this by saying that they were soft on Serbia and will get tougher, but in
reality their military attack was becoming difficult to manage, expensive and risky (the NATO
unity was beginning to fray).
2) It was a running joke in Serbia how NATO planes would attack some completely empty hill
(Serbia is a relatively hilly country), create literally free fireworks for the villagers, just
because there was an air defense installation on the hill maybe 5-10 hours ago. A similar joke
was how the Serbian military or even the local villagers would spread a strip of black builders
plastic over a river and NATO planes flying at above 5 km to avoid manpads would blast this $2
bridge with $200,000 worth of bombs (adding mission cost to the cost of bombs).
Regarding US F117, it was more "stealth" than F35 and similar stealth to the smaller F22,
but the Serbians used the Checkoslovakian TAMARA passive radar, using ionospheric scatter, and
also launched multiple operator guided missiles at F117 without a proper engagement radar to be
HARMed. Self-confident in stealth the pilots of F117 did not manoeuvre, thus it was easy to
predict their path even without the targeting and engagement radar.
Forcing US to retire F117 was the second costliest damage the Serbians have done (Lockheed
did not cry, through their lobbyists they turned the loss into an opportunity to sell more
rubbish). But the biggest cost to US was that Milosevic sold several unexploded cruise missiles
and all F117 parts to China and used the money to rebuild and repair all civilian buildings in
Serbia destroyed by NATO. Later, UK and US did a colour revolution in Serbia, got their hands
on Milosevic, who then died from a health "accident" in NATO jail.
@Cyrano
You are spot-on. The Serbian military fought NATO to a draw, proven by the fact that the
peace treaty signed in Kumanovo in FYRM, did not contain the Rambouye clauses and even left
Kosovo under Serbian jurisdiction as per UNSC 1244.
Even this military draw was forced on Serbia by increased bombardment of civilian targets
in Serbia combined with open threats of carpet bombing by US B57. Serbia is a fairly densely
populated country, no jungles to hide in as in Vietnam. The civilian targets were bombed to
show that they could do carpet bombing with impunity (with the help of MSM). Thanks to
media, to this day very few people in the West know that towards the end of the 78-day war,
US and UK deliberately targeted several completely civilian facilities (bridges, hospitals
and schools) and in just a few days of such targeting killed about 200 civilians.
Naturally, any agreements with the West are totally pointless. After the Kumanovo
agreement, US and UK organized a color revolution in Serbia, took Kosovo away and got their
Serbian puppets to agree to all Rambouye demands. Serbia did not lose the war, but it lost
the agreement peace with the West.
' to my knowledge the Serbians did not use a radiating radar to shoot-down one/two F117.
They used a passive radar, which does not emit at all, it only receives a rough and noisy
location of the stealth plane '
This is complete nonsense once again you choose to pontificate on things in which you have
no knowledge
In your earlier comment,
you identified this 'passive radar' allegedly used by the Serbs as the Czech 'Tamara' system
which the Serbs did not possess
Not only that but this kind of system is not used for guiding SAM shots, and is certainly
not any kind of 'anti-stealth' weapon this category of device is known as an emitter locator
system [ELS], and is used to listen in on radio emissions from hostile aircraft and to then
track them, by means of a number of geometrically deployed antennas that can then triangulate
the bearing and direction of the aircraft
However, the basic physics involved means that these emitter locators are effective at
tracking signals OTHER THAN the aircraft's onboard radar this would include the IFF
[identification friend or foe transponder signal] and other onboard radio emitters which are
OMNIDIRECTIONAL emitters
An aircraft radar's narrow pencil beam could not reach multiple [at least 2] ELS antenna
[which would be geographically dispersed] to provide the needed triangulation
' A topic which appears to crop up with monotonous regularity [is] Warsaw Pact equipment
"capable of detecting stealth aircraft".
These claims invariably involve either the Czech designed and built Tesla-Pardubice
KRTP-86 Tamara or ERA Vera Emitter Locating Systems, or the Ukrainian designed and built
Topaz Kolchuga series of Emitter Locating Systems.
More than often this equipment is described as 'anti-stealth radar', 'radar' or
'passive radar', all of which are completely incorrect.
Much of everything else you have farted out here regarding the Serb takedown of the F117
is similar bullshit
The
3′rd battery of the 250′th Air Defense missile Brigade, commanded by then Lt
Col Zoltan Dani killed both F117s [the second one made it back to Aviano, Italy but was
scrapped, as USAF Col Riccioni confirms in his F22 report I linked to earlier] as well as the
kill on the F16 of then 555′th squadron Commander, then Lt Col David Goldfein, who,
since 2016 happens to be Gen Goldfein and the USAF
Chief of Staff
Here is Goldfein's F16 canopy and tail feathers on display at the Belgrade Aviation
Museum
Incidentally, Col Riccioni mentions in that same report that Goldfein was doing 'other
than what he was supposed to be doing' when shot down I guess in today's USAF that means you
have the 'right stuff' to become The Chief
Also incidentally, the Goldfein kill was overseen by Col Dani's Deputy Maj Bosko Dotlic,
as Col Dani was off duty at the time
The point is that that one single S125 battery accounted for ALL the confirmed kills of
the Serb IADS in 1999 [although there are many more 'probable' kills that either ditched in
the Adriatic, or limped back but were scrapped]
This speaks to my earlier point about human competence and the 'hawks' and 'doves' just
like a small fraction of fighter pilots rack up the overwhelming majority of kills the same
goes for air defense commanders, submarine captains, tank commanders etc
You have spewed here a whole lot of garbage about 'secret' anti-stealth weapons and 'lucky
shots' etc which is a complete insult to the historical record and the great work by Col Dani
and his men and to the entire principle of working and training hard to achieve professional
competence in a military skill
Here is a picture of the side of the 3′rd Battery Command Cabin, with Three kills
stenciled in the F117 [black] on top a B2 [not confirmed] and Goldfein's F16 in white at
bottom
As per standard Russian air defense design doctrine, the S125 uses a separate
acquisition and tracking radar which DOES operate at a lower frequency in this case the
P15 'Flat Face'
which operates in the decimetric wavelength band [which is similar to ATC radar frequency of
about 1.2 to 1.4 GHz...ie L band]
As explained previously the acquisition radar serves to find and track the target at long
range and cues the engagement radar to scan a precise sector where the acquisition radar has
found the target the engagement radar's increased precision [due to its higher frequency and
antenna size] then provides pinpoint accuracy to guide the missile
It is this combination of separate radars working together that allows the targeting of
low observable aircraft and what the 3′rd Battery did was a textbook example of using
the equipment to its full potential despite the fact that this old radar technology was in
fact susceptible to jamming, which the Nato forces employed massively
Col Dani also trained his men hard to be able to disassemble their radar and launchers
within 90 minutes and load everything up on trucks and move to another location he also
exercised strict discipline with regard to emissions allowing the radar to be turned on only
for very short bursts at a time about a minute or two at most
This is all textbook Soviet operating procedure and the difference was the exceptional
work ethic and competence that Col Dani maintained in his unit
It should be noted here that the Serb air defense was in fact very successful overall war
is a game of survival and attrition and what the Serbs accomplished was noted by air combat
practitioners
'The air campaign over Kosovo severely affected the readiness rates of the United States
Air Force's Air Combat Command during that period. Units in the United States were the most
badly affected, as they were were stripped of their personnel and spare parts to support
ACC (Air Combat Command) and AMC (Air Mobility Command) units involved in Operation Allied
Force.
The Commander of the USAF's Air Combat Command, General Richard E Hawley, outlined this
in a speech to reporters on 29 April, 1999.[10] Further, many aircraft will have to be
replaced earlier than previously planned, as their planned fatigue life was prematurely
expended.
PGM inventories needed to be re-stocked, the warstock of the AGM-86C Conventional
Air-Launched Cruise Missile dropping to 100 or fewer rounds.[11] Of the more than 25,000
bombs and missiles expended, nearly 8,500 were PGMs, with the replacement cost estimated at
$US1.3 billion.[12]
Thus the USAF suffered from virtual attrition of its air force without having scored
a large number of kills in theatre. Even if the United States' best estimates of Serbian
casualties are used, the Serbians left Kosovo with a large part of their armoured forces
intact.
Incidentally, several years ago the downed USAF pilot Col Dale Zelko, traveled to Serbia
to visit the man who shot him down Col Dani a film The Second Meeting was made here is
a trailer
PS I will have more to say later, as you have littered this thread with all kinds of
technically incorrect crapola
@Johnny
Rico NATO failed to defeat the Yugoslav army so NATO targeted Serbian civilians. You have
suffered far more losses than you acknowledge so you started killing women and children. You
rained the main marked and the main hospital of my hometown with cluster bombs. That's why
Serbia accepted UN resolution 1244 and the Kumanovo agreement. Given the ultimatum in
Rambouillet, that's not what I would call a capitulation. The only reason Serbia signed was
because you threatened to mass murder Serbian civilians. Why would you threaten to massacre
civilians if you had so soundly defeated the Yugoslav army? Never have so many American
military died during training exercises than during the aggression against Serbia. We
consider you to be shit at war. Extremely armed fags who pee in their pants when they face
opposition. But believe what you want.
@Kiza
The Russians failed to defend Serbia in 1999. That's the Serbian approach.
Why on Earth would Russians defend Serbs who only remember "Russian" brothers when they're in
dire straits?
Why would the Russian "love" us more than we "love" them? What is their interest? Because
Serbs love "Tolstoevsky"?
Don't blame the Russian for Serbian failures. In true love as in a true contract, you have to
give in order to take. Russia has given us a lot with no expectance of return. If she
expected anything, we have given her nothing. We aren't Russia's spoiled child.
NATO failed to defeat the Yugoslav army so NATO targeted Serbian civilians.
Actually, they started to target civilian infrastructure. The objective was to intimidate
the regime in Belgrade into surrender by pushing the country towards stone age.
I guess you could be onto something here:
You have suffered far more losses than you acknowledge .
and
Never have so many American military died during training exercises than during the
aggression against Serbia.
As for
That's why Serbia accepted UN resolution 1244 and the Kumanovo agreement.
there was a little matter of Russia guaranteeing something too, I guess. While the
drunkard was in the Kremlin.
Perceptions aside (Argentinians still believe they sank Royal Navy aircraft carrier in
'82, for example) NATO delivered what its political masters wanted at the time.
Serbs lost .BADLY.
@Vojkan
Yes. It's pretty much standard American practice to bomb civilian infrastructure immediately,
regardless of the degree of resistance put up by the opposing military.
@Vojkan
I don't mean to interfere in inter-Serbian squabble, but I'll volunteer an opinion anyway. I
think you are exaggerating what Russia has done for Serbia for example. How so? As a proud
Balkaneer ( I am exaggerating here a little bit myself – the proud part) I have to say
that we in the Balkans have always benefited from the simple fact that usually Russia's
enemies are our enemies too, so when Russia takes care of their enemies, they automatically
take care of our enemies too.
But I don't think that the Russians would necessarily put their neck on the line for the
Balkan Slavs to defend them against enemies that are not their enemies as well. So,
unfortunately for Serbia, that equation didn't work for them in the 90's – simply put
– Serbia's enemies were not automatically Russia's enemies too. Russia was still trying
to be friends with the west. I forgot who it was, but some prominent Russian politician at
the time said: "We are not going to start nuclear war with US over Serbia".
But it seems that Serbia is always the canary in the mine – whenever someone attacks
Serbia – Russia is next. That's why that buffoon Yeltsin had to go. Friendship with the
west was over the moment they attacked Yugoslavia (Serbia). Now the Russia didn't start a
nuclear war over Serbia, but they still might have to – to defend themselves, and as
always Serbia will benefit from this – if anything is left over from this world after
things go nuclear.
@peterAUS
Serbs did lose badly. Albeit not on the battlefield. Though there never was a real
battlefield.
I have no reason to doubt the accounts of my friends in the military who sought in the rare
conversations I've had with them on the subject, to humble down their achievements.
I believe Russians capitalised on the Serb's defeat. I can't blame them for that. No one is
responsible for what happened to Serbs, as it happened, but Serbs. They're so keen on making
the wrong decisions for the sake of appearing glorious, you can't blame the devil for that.
It's their informed choice
@Beefcake
the Mighty To be fair, they only did it after they realised that the Serb military were
too smart to be depleted by aerial bombardment and that in order to defeat them, you'd have
to fight them on the ground. That's why NATO bombarded civilians. On a man to man basis,
Serbs and Russians are the best soldiers in the world. No navy seal, no marine, no SAS can
match them. Fighting for their homes gives them the little bit of adrenaline needed to
prevail.
@Cyrano
My point was never "Russians" are our brothers. My point is, whatever cultural, religious or
blood affinity I have with the Russians, they have their interests and we have ours. I cannot
expect of Russians to defend Serbia for "ses beaux yeaux". The same goes the other way
around. To some people Russia has "betrayed" Serbia, to some other Serbia has "betrayed"
Russia. Yet the West sees us as one whole, Russia and little "Russia". I didn't ask myself
before but now I love Russia infinetely more than the West. Russia has asked me nothing, has
given me nothing and is expecting nothing from me.
If we can have a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, great. We will never have that
with the USA or the UK or Germany or France. They're guilty of the spoilation of Serbs' lives
and private properties. Russians never spoiled Serbs of anything.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says that people having "poor" memories of NATO's
1999 bombing of Yugoslavia are wrong because the military bloc did this to protect civilians
and save lives.
"I stressed that we did this to protect civilians and to stop the Milosevic regime,"
Stoltenberg stated during a meeting with the students of Belgrade University.
The NATO secretary stated further that the bloc supports a "dialogue" between Serbia and its
breakaway region [now a self-proclaimed state] of Kosovo. According to him, Belgrade has to
"look into the future" for furher cooperation between the two sides.
The attitude showed by Stoltenberg is a common example how the US-NATO propaganda works. Any
actions, incluindg illegal military interventions, false flag provocations and mass civilian
casualties, are being explained by the need to "defend democracy", "protect civilians" and
"save lives".
Lots of interesting information regarding conversations between Bill Clinton and Yeltsin
but allow me to focus on the NATO bombing of Serbia:
Although Clinton and Yeltsin enjoyed friendly relations, NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia
tempered Moscow's enthusiastic partnership with the West.
"Our people will certainly from now have a bad attitude with regard to America and with
NATO," the Russian president told Clinton in March 1999. "I remember how difficult it was for
me to try and turn the heads of our people, the heads of the politicians towards the West,
towards the United States, but I succeeded in doing that, and now to lose all that."
Yeltsin urged Clinton to renounce the strikes, for the sake of "our relationship" and
"peace in Europe."
The declassified White House Yeltsin files reveal the drama at the turning point in
US-Russia relations, when Yeltsin pleaded, threatened and despaired trying to make Clinton
call off the bombing of Yugoslavia.
"It is not known who will come after us and it is not known what will be the road of
future developments in strategic nuclear weapons," Yeltsin reminded his US
counterpart.
But Clinton wouldn't cede ground.
Clinton to Yeltsin on Milosevic: "It will be your decision if you decide to let this
bully destroy the relationship we worked hard for over six and a half years to build up I'm
sorry he is a Serb. I wish he were Irish or something else, but he is not."
"Milosevic is still a communist dictator and he would like to destroy the alliance that
Russia has built up with the US and Europe and essentially destroy the whole movement of your
region toward democracy and go back to ethnic alliances. We cannot allow him to dictate our
future," Clinton told Yeltsin.
It was much more than the all-out bombing campaign by NATO. Serbia resisted for more than
70 days by courage and intelligence including bagging at least one stealth aircraft and its
army remaining virtually untouched and ready to take on a NATO land invasion.
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the
weight of their own money-grubbing schemes.
Notable quotes:
"... Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their mortgage . ..."
"... By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in Yes! Magazine ..."
"... Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of admitting they can't pay their bills. ..."
"... Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick, or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew. ..."
"... With a default rate approaching 40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say, ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances. ..."
"... When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems. ..."
"... Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization." ..."
"... "Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost." ..."
"... A recent manifesto by activist and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains. ..."
"... Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six years, routinely. ..."
Yves
here. This article describes how the stigma of struggling to pay student debt is a burden in
and of itself. I wish this article had explained how little it take to trigger an escalation
into default interest rates and how punitive they are. The piece also stresses the value of
activism as a form of psychological relief, by connecting stressed student debt borrowers with
people similarly afflicted.
But the bigger issue is the way indebtedness is demonized in a society that makes it pretty
much impossible to avoid borrowing. One reader recounted how many (as in how few) weeks of
after tax wages it took to buy a car in the 1960s versus now. Dealers don't want to talk to
buyers who want to pay in full at the time of purchase. And if you don't have installment
credit or a mortgage, the consumer credit agencies ding you!
It goes without saying that the sense of shame is harder to endure due to how shallow most
people's social networks are, which is another product of neoliberalism.
In keeping, the New York Times today ran an op-ed by one of its editors on how student
debtors are also victims of the crisis, reprinted from a longer piece in The Baffler (hat tip Dan
K).
Key sections :
Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid
more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly
payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like
Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and
that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially
meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their
mortgage .
Many people have and will continue to condemn me personally for my tremendous but
unexceptional student debt, and the ways in which it has made the recession's effects linger
for my family. I've spent quite a lot of time in the past decade accepting this blame. The
recession may have compounded my family's economic insecurity, but I also made the conscious
decision to take out loans for a college I couldn't afford in order to become a journalist, a
profession with minimal financial returns. The amount of debt I owe in student loans -- about
$100,000 -- is more than I make in a given year. I am ashamed and embarrassed by this, but as
I grow older, I think it is time that those profiting from this country's broken economic
system share some of my guilt
[At my commencement in 2009] Mrs. Clinton then echoed a fantasy of boundless opportunity
that had helped guide the country into economic collapse, deceiving many of the parents in
attendance, including my own, into borrowing toward a future that they couldn't work hard
enough to afford. "There is no problem we face here in America or around the world that will
not yield to human effort," she said. "Our challenges are ones that summon the best of us,
and we will make the world better tomorrow than it is today." At the time, I wondered if this
was accurate. I now know how wrong she was.
By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in
Yes! Magazine
Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of
admitting they can't pay their bills.
Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial
trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick,
or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew.
With a default rate approaching
40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets
demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student
debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say,
ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances.
When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their
names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who
went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified
of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems.
"If I shared this with anyone they will look down upon me as some kind of fool," explains a
North Carolina psychologist who is now beyond retirement age. He explains that his student debt
balance soared after losing a well-paying position during the financial crisis, and that he is
struggling to pay it back.
Financial shame alienates struggling borrowers. Debtors blame themselves and self-loathe
when they can't make their payments, explains Colette Simone, a Michigan psychologist. "There
is so much fear of sharing the reality of their financial situation and the devastation it is
causing in every facet of their lives," she says. "The consequences of coming forward can
result in social pushback and possible job -- related complications, which only deepen their
suffering."
Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken
their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or
had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization."
With an average debt of just over $37,000 per borrower for the
class of 2016 , and given that incomes have been flat since the 1970s , it's not
surprising that borrowers are struggling to pay. Student loans have a squeaky-clean reputation,
and society tends to view them as a noble symbol of the taxpayers' generosity to the working
poor. Fear of facing society's ostracism for failure to pay them back has left borrowers
alienated and trapped in a lending system that is engulfing them in debt bondage.
"Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet
Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost."
Student debtors can counter despair by fighting back through activism and political
engagement, she says. "Connection is the antidote to alienation, and engaging in activism,
along with therapy, is a way to recovery."
Despite the fear of coming forward, some activists are building a social movement in which
meaningful connections among borrowers can counter the taboo of openly admitting financial
ruin.
Student Loan Justice, a national grassroots lobby group, is attempting to build this
movement by pushing for robust legislation to return
bankruptcy protections to borrowers. The group has active chapters in almost every state, with
members directly lobbying their local representatives to sign on as co-sponsors to HR 2366.
Activists are building a supportive community for struggling borrowers through political
agitation, local engagement, storytelling, and by spreading a courageous message of hope that
may embolden traumatized borrowers to come forward and unite.
Julie Margetaa Morgan
, a fellow at The Roosevelt Institute, recently noted that student debt servicers like Navient
have a powerful influence on lawmakers. "Student loan borrowers may not have millions to spend
on lobbying, but they have something equally, if not more, powerful: millions of voices," she
says.
A recent manifesto by activist
and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in
constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able
to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading to a
mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical change.
In a recent interview he
explained that the conditions for borrowers are so bad already that debtors may not join the
boycott willingly. Instead, participation may simply happen by default given the lack of proper
work opportunities that lead to borrowers' inability to pay.
While a large-scale default may not happen through willful and supportive collective action,
ending the secrecy of the crisis through massive national attention may destigmatize the shame
of financial defeat and finally bring debtors out of the isolation that causes them so much
despair.
Activists are calling for a significant conversation about the commodification of educating
our youth, shifting our focus toward investing into the promise of the young and able, rather
than the guarantee of their perpetual debt bondage. In calling for collective action they
soothe the hurt of so many alienated debtors, breaking the taboos that allow them to say, "Me,
too" and admit openly that in this financial climate we all need each other to move
forward.
How much are the interest rates on student loans there in the USA? Here in India its 11.5%
if you want to finance studies abroad. 8.5 for some select institutions.
I wonder if the media's obsession with "millenials" isn't primarily a way to try to divide
people with shared interests, above all around the topics of student debt and the job market
and to make the problems seem like they have shallower roots than they really do. The
individuals mentioned here are older than that 24-37 age cohort, one of them much older.
Dealers don't want to talk to buyers who want to pay in full at the time of
purchase.
Yes Yes. Car manufacturers are actually finance houses selling products manufactured by
subcontractors – such is the state of American industry – but their dream is to
move to a SaaS model where ownership, of anything, becomes a relic of the past (except for
the overlords and oligarchs).
This could not be possible without government corruption and revolving-door regulation.
Maybe these PAYG vehicles will contain built-in body scanners too; for our own security, of
course.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading
to a mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical
change.
Default, or radical change, would bring the economy to it's knees. But when there is
another economic downturn, this is going to happen anyway. Terrible situation; negative real
interest rates destroying the pensions of the elderly, student loan servitude destroying the
youth and the middle class being squeezed to oblivion. What can be done to fix it, I ask?
Yet they are doing God's work, are they? Well, this is not a God I choose to worship.
Well good for you. How many cars, of what age, have you bought, for your anecdote to rate
as anything vaguely resembling the wide reality, and how does your personal financial
situation let you just write checks for $30 or $70,000?
Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales
force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six
years, routinely.
And one wonders what the investment is in trying to impeach the points of this report, wth
such an unlikely and atypical claim.
Maybe a little traction, then, for the notion, and increasingly the inescapable reality, of
#juststoppaying on those "remember Joe Biden" virtually non-dischargeable, often fraudulently
induced, "student loan" debt shackles?
... "What we have is a desperate corporate media, dutifully parroting the nonsense from the US State Department, and investing
virtually nothing in on-the-ground investigative reporting. But real evidence? We are in very, VERY short supply of that."
... From article: He [Clegg] also argued that the country should lose the right to host the 2018 World Cup after Russian
troops allegedly downed the civilian airliner Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine last July. Well, there's evidence in itself. Ei incumbit
probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. (The burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies). He wants to punish before the
publication o the report. It's like a mediaeval witch-hunt. The law of the jungle seems to be Clegg's guiding principle. No surprise
he's been banned.
..."I can only assume it is as badge of honour if you buy into all the dimwitted propaganda being published by the western corporate
media -- who seem to have a daily axe to grind against the Russian state, but who say nothing about the warmongering actions of the
US. I imagine I would have the same opinion of you if I was to uncritically swallow such toxic rubbish."
..."The only way to effectively block people from other regions (blanket censor them, in other words) would be to positively identify
the source. All that you would likely achieve is blocking actual individual commentators and letting through the government astroturfers.
Why you would want to resort to such tactics is worth asking. The 'Western side' may be losing the propaganda war with Russia because
our lies are bigger and harder to sell -- rather than Pooty-poot being cleverer. Repeated debunked claims in our media are also going
to be far more damaging than anything similar in Russia. The problem doesn't lie with those you are asserting to be 'trolls' that are
disputing the reporting -- the problem lies with the reporting.
Notable quotes:
"... But it's very suspect when you say things like "Putin's created a criminal war in East Ukraine" when it was Kiev which started the violence in reaction to the Russian Ukrainians voting for Federalization in response to the coup in Kiev. It means that everything else you write has to be treated as suspect. ..."
"... alpamysh ... you've merely regurgitated the standard NeoCon list of justifications for why a democratically-elected leader needed to be overthrown ..."
"... The article isn't worth the headline really. The new cold war is on and obviously they'll be barring each other. ..."
"... On the other hand the EU has also put an entry ban on leading Russian politicians, among which are the chairman of the Federation council, politicians from the state Duma and also close advisors to the Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is not anticipated that either side will lift the entry bans in the near future. (Excerpt and rough translation from German) ..."
"... "In December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve "its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion." She said the U.S. goal was to take "Ukraine into the future that it deserves," by which she meant into the West's orbit and away from Russia's. ..."
"... But President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed harsh austerity on the already impoverished Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine's economy with discounted natural gas. Yanukovych's decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country's western and more pro-European region. ..."
"... By late January, Nuland was discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt who should be allowed in the new government. ..."
"... "Yats is the guy," Nuland said in a phone call to Pyatt that was intercepted and posted online. "He's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the guy you know." By "Yats," Nuland was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had served as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister - and who was committed to harsh austerity. ..."
"... Well, there's evidence in itself. Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. (The burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies). He wants to punish before the publication o the report. It's like a mediaeval witch-hunt. The law of the jungle seems to be Clegg's guiding principle. No surprise he's been banned. ..."
"... "Putin wants sanctions" ... what a bunch of silly conjecture. As for "Putin style rule" and "Tzar" .. you presumably know that Russia held democratic elections which Putin won. ..."
"... let me guess, The list probably contains politicians whose real loyalty maybe is with the US? Judge from the 2 names mentioned, Malcolm Riffkind is Co-Vice Chair of the Global Panel Foundation – America – with Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, the former U.S Under-Secretary of Defense and Comptroller of the Armed Forces. ..."
"... your constant anti-Russia/Putin comments mark you as a shill/troll ..."
"... What we have is a desperate corporate media, dutifully parroting the nonsense from the US State Department, and investing virtually nothing in on-the-ground investigative reporting. But real evidence? We are in very, VERY short supply of that. ..."
"... I can only assume it is as badge of honour if you buy into all the dimwitted propaganda being published by the western corporate media - ..."
"... We're the global overlords, and so second-rate nations aren't allowed to reciprocate our petulant actions. When they do so it causes some people to question the assumed status of the 'Western' hegemony (and our claimed system of morally superior 'values'). We can't allow that sort of thing, Popeyes. ..."
"... The Guardian has a clear pro-EU/USA position on the new cold war against Russia. ..."
"... The 'Western side' may be losing the propaganda war with Russia because our lies are bigger and harder to sell -- rather than Pooty-poot being cleverer. ..."
"... The problem doesn't lie with those you are asserting to be 'trolls' that are disputing the reporting -- the problem lies with the reporting. ..."
JordanFromLondon -> Havingalavrov 31 May 2015 12:26
"Look at the Moscow apartment bombings"... look at any number of CIA false flag operations. As for "most of the national T.V
is Putin press." ... Murdoch has a controlling interest in printed press and a large share of TV news in Australia and the UK.
Maybe you are one of the CIA-employed agitators against Russia, or maybe you have a chip on your shoulder about a failed relationship
with a Russia bride. I can't be sure from your comments.
But it's very suspect when you say things like "Putin's created a criminal war in East Ukraine" when it was Kiev which
started the violence in reaction to the Russian Ukrainians voting for Federalization in response to the coup in Kiev. It means
that everything else you write has to be treated as suspect.
Huo Fu Yan 31 May 2015 12:24
I don't see a big issue with that list. If some people from that list travel anywhere, it will be considered wasting tax payer
money anyways. They aren't even embraced by a majority in their own countries, some of them belonging to totally irrelevant weird
initiative, shouting and crying about this and that.
For others on that list, being linked to military organisations, the should be banned naturally. As for vacation, I don't think
Russia was on those guys list either
JordanFromLondon -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 12:14
alpamysh ... you've merely regurgitated the standard NeoCon list of justifications for why a democratically-elected leader
needed to be overthrown(e.g. Egypt's Morsi). If we take your "Hitler was elected" argument, we can apply that one
to any election outcome. If you won your high school "class monitor" election ... we'll Hitler won an election too. It's nothing
more than a lazy smear by association. If we take your "rigs the right of the opposition" argument, well there goes Israel's claims
to democracy. They arrest/ban viable Arab opposition figures to prevent them standing in elections. Also, we have to eliminate
Ukraine, who have assassinated about 12 of Yanukovich's inner circle since the coup.
uzzername 31 May 2015 12:09
The article isn't worth the headline really. The new cold war is on and obviously they'll be barring each other.
Russia, along with the rest of BRICS is an emerging economy. While in the developed economies big corporations scramble for
every penny they rip off off the consumers, the BRICS are a goldmine for adventurous capitalists as you can score quite a bit
of dope in one scoop if you invest enough in it.
That's why some of them suits on the list are pissed off. Obvs not because their summer holiday in Siberia has gone into smithereens.
umweltAT2100 31 May 2015 12:04
According to a report in ARD (German state media) the entry ban is a reaction / retaliation in response to the entry ban imposed
on Russians in connection with the Crimea annexation. Approximately 200 people are on the Russian black list. The largest number
are from the USA, with the Republican John McCain declared "persona non grata", followed by Canadian politicians.
On the other hand the EU has also put an entry ban on leading Russian politicians, among which are the chairman of the
Federation council, politicians from the state Duma and also close advisors to the Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is not
anticipated that either side will lift the entry bans in the near future. (Excerpt and rough translation from German)
Russian entry ban for dozens of politicians – Moscow's black list is out. (Hermann Krause, ARD Radio studio, Moscow,
30.05.2015)
Russische Einreiseverbote für Dutzende Politiker Moskaus "schwarze Liste" ist raus. Von Hermann Krause, ARD-Hörfunkstudio Moskau,
30.05.2015
Victoria Nuland and the neocons to be more precise,
"In December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve "its European aspirations, we have
invested more than $5 billion." She said the U.S. goal was to take "Ukraine into the future that it deserves," by which she meant
into the West's orbit and away from Russia's.
But President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed harsh austerity on the already impoverished
Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine's economy with discounted
natural gas. Yanukovych's decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country's western and more pro-European
region.
Nuland was soon at work planning for "regime change," encouraging disruptive street protests by personally passing out cookies
to the anti-government demonstrators. She didn't seem to notice or mind that the protesters in Kiev's Maidan square had hoisted
a large banner honoring Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and
whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.
By late January, Nuland was discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt who should be allowed in the new
government.
"Yats is the guy," Nuland said in a phone call to Pyatt that was intercepted and posted online. "He's got the economic
experience, the governing experience. He's the guy you know." By "Yats," Nuland was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had served
as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister - and who was committed to harsh austerity.
As Assistant Secretary Nuland and Sen. McCain cheered the demonstrators on, the street protests turned violent. Police clashed
with neo-Nazi bands, the ideological descendants of Bandera's anti-Russian Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazi SS during
World War II.
With the crisis escalating and scores of people killed in the street fighting, Yanukovych agreed to a E.U.-brokered deal that
called for moving up scheduled elections and having the police stand down. The neo-Nazi storm troopers then seized the opening
to occupy government buildings and force Yanukovych and many of his aides to flee for their lives." https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/
JordanFromLondon -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 11:53
What proof do you have that the Russian elections were phony ? The results were in line with independent opinion polls. Which
referendums was phony ? The first Iraqi election after Sadam was toppled was certainly phony. The US military whisked away the
ballot boxes for a week after voting was completed before announcing that the Shia (60% of Iraqis) had failed to get a majority
(despite the 20% Bathist Sunni boycotting the election so only the 20% Kurds voted against the 60% Shia).
geedeesee -> SnarkyGrumpkin 31 May 2015 11:50
From article: He [Clegg] also argued that the country should lose the right to host the 2018 World Cup after Russian troops
allegedly downed the civilian airliner Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine last July.
Well, there's evidence in itself. Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. (The burden of proof is on he who declares,
not on he who denies). He wants to punish before the publication o the report. It's like a mediaeval witch-hunt. The law of the
jungle seems to be Clegg's guiding principle. No surprise he's been banned.
JordanFromLondon -> Havingalavrov 31 May 2015 11:45
"Putin wants sanctions" ... what a bunch of silly conjecture. As for "Putin style rule" and "Tzar" .. you presumably know
that Russia held democratic elections which Putin won. That's more than many of the US/UK allies can say (take your pick
of the Gulf state leaders). Don't buy into the mindless anti-Russian propaganda doing the rounds. I suspect that it's intended
to soften public opnion for anti-Russian attrocities committed in our name to come.
Huo Fu Yan -> David Port 31 May 2015 11:36
It's true, 1/3 the list are politicians and military leader from Poland and baltics with no intend to enter Russia anyways.
The rest are merely people engaged in military organisations (should be banned naturally) or weird political groups and initiatives.
Furthermore, there are a few irrelevant politicians on the list for whatever reason. To be frank, a few people from that list
you wouldt want in your own country either.
meewaan 31 May 2015 11:07
let me guess, The list probably contains politicians whose real loyalty maybe is with the US? Judge from the 2 names mentioned,
Malcolm Riffkind is Co-Vice Chair of the Global Panel Foundation – America – with Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, the former U.S Under-Secretary
of Defense and Comptroller of the Armed Forces.
Not sure about banning Nick Clegg, - has his wife remunerated by her work for companies linked to the US? Take, for example,
Mrs Clegg's firm's advertisement (again, on its website) of the fact it makes considerable sums from helping rich people avoid
inheritance tax, saying that it offers 'personal estate planning advice and financial and tax-planning services to high net worth
individuals'.
'We combine sophisticated estate planning skills with international resources . . . We help U.S. and non-U.S. trustees and
beneficiaries transfer wealth efficiently through lifetime and testamentary trusts designed to minimise tax exposure.'
SuchindranathAiyer 31 May 2015 10:35
It required a "Tit for Tat" to establish that sanctions are working? Here is the geo-political back drop:
Reigan and Gorby arrived at certain agreements and understandings which Clinton (the husband) violated. He pulled Poland and
others into NATO and bombed Russian ally Belgrade, violating international law, while a helpless Russia fumed, for 84 days to
given Islam its first ethnically cleansed enclaves (Bosnia and Kosovo) after 1489.
Bush (the son), declared the "Star Wars" missile shield in direct violation of the Regan-Gorbachev agreements while Russia
continued to fume, but began to re arm and prepare itself for war. Apart from, of course, violating International Law and invading
Russian ally Iraq to distract anger over 9/11 from Saudi Arabia and its Nuclear-Terrorist sword arm Pakistan and threw thriving
communities of Jews, Christians, Yazidis, discos and bars that the Saudis, Qataris and Kuwaitis resented into the maws of Islam.
Russia fumed and continued to rearm and began to rally around Putin's nationalism. The US commenced "regime change" operations
in Russian (and Iraqi) Secular ally Syria, throwing even more Jews, Christians, Yazidis and Kurds into the maws of Islam. US was
to weakened by Iraq to wage war unilaterally in Syria. China and Russia blocked the US at the UN. Putin wrote an open letter to
Obama on Syria in the NY Times which gained traction with the American Citizens, bending Obama's nose and driving the US regime
change operation in Syria further under ground (covert). Prince Bandar (what an appropriate name!) head of Saudi intelligence
went ot Moscow to bribe Putin to back the putsch in Syria. Putin refused and told Bandar that if Islam tried a Beslan at Sochi,
he would bomb the Q'aba. This bent the Saudi nose. So the US commenced operation regime change in Ukraine. This sparked the secession
of Crime to Russia. The US fumed and fretted because its more develoed and intelligent NATO allies (France and Germany) would
not back the US backed fascist regime in Ukraine. The US shot down MH-17 in a false flag operation and started a canard against
Russia to revive NATO. There is a NATO now imposing US-Saudi conceived sanctions on Russia. We are now in the Second Cold War
so NATO won't go away. Russia and China will ally because, Clinton to Obama, the US has demonstrated the dangers of a unipolar
world, particularly as Islamic Petro Dollars own the decision and opinion makers of the West and have used the US military to
further the Islamic agenda as much as carry on with the old anti-Communist prejudices. (While Russia is not Totalitarian, China
is. India is really the last Soviet franchise in the World with its "Animal Farm" totalitarian Constitution and thinking which
is why the US is an ally of Pakistan and as hostile to India as to Russia. Consider that as recently as 2012, the man who lolls
in Lutyen's drawing room today moved "retrospective" legislation in the same Parliament that nationalized 20% of private (non
minority) education and removed the truth from Govt approved History text books, in the highest traditions of Nehru, Ambedkar
and Indira Gandhi.)
wilpost37 -> AbsolutelyFapulous 31 May 2015 10:33
Absolutely/Goman
Almost all the tourists of Crimea were Ukrainians before 2014. They stopped coming, and likely are spending their vacation
elsewhere.
Crimea is rebuilding its infrastructures (Kiev had neglected them for 22 years), and its tourist base.
It expects to have over 4 million visitors in 2015 and 5 million in 2016, because many Russians are no longer going to EU countries,
and are going to Crimea, Sochi, etc., instead. It will take time, but Crimea is a beautiful area.
Crimea became part of the Russian Empire by conquest over the Tartars in 1793.
The Tartars had been kidnapping nearby people (several million over many decades) and selling them to the Turks. Catherine
the Great put an end to that.
Khrushev was stupid to give it to Ukraine in 1954.
After the CIA/FBI-assisted coup of Kiev, the Crimean people, 67% Russian, feared for their future, as did the Donbas people.
SHappens 31 May 2015 10:24
"Just one thing remains unclear: did our European co-workers want these lists to minimise inconveniences for potential 'denied
persons' or to stage a political show?"
It is pretty clear that it turned out to be another media circus.
Socraticus -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 10:12
Lesson 1 - everyone on this site is a guest, you included
Lesson 2 - the majority of posters herein are actually westerners, not 'Russian trolls'
Lesson 3 - all politicians lie to advance their own social/economic/political agendas
Lesson 4 - all MSM distort/suppress the truth to support governmental narratives
Lesson 5 - many of us westerners actually bother to investigate the true facts
Lesson 6 - if a leader's being demonized its because they won't capitulate to the US
Lesson 7 - every illicit invasion is preceded by demonization of a leader/country
Lesson 8 - your constant anti-Russia/Putin comments mark you as a shill/troll
Lesson 9 - you can educate yourself or remain blind to facts - your choice
Lesson 10 - you will learn the consequences of your choices
UnsleepingMind -> EssoBlue 31 May 2015 10:12
You realise that Russia is one the most important members of the BRICS and that they group has recently established a development
bank? That's hardly the sign that the other BRICS nations are not reading from the same hymn sheet as Russia...
What did anyone expect flowers from russia from the unfair treatment it's getting. The west paying for Ukraine part nazi government
and creating a coup in a democratically ekected president last february. Then sanctioning the Russian people expecting them to
turn in yheir president. The west should be ashamed of what they accomplished that being fronting a proxy war against Russia.
Vijay Raghavan -> Huo Fu Yan 31 May 2015 09:54
Developing all-round military-to-military relations. China's armed forces will further their exchanges and cooperation with
the Russian military within the framework of the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination between China and Russia,
and foster a comprehensive, diverse and sustainable framework to promote military relations in more fields and at more levels
They made that statement in their white paper issued last week.Offcourse Guardian or BBC will not keep up with such "Breaking
News".
UnsleepingMind -> EssoBlue 31 May 2015 09:49
1) Yes, the BRICS countries are very much behind Russia.
2) Russia, unlike the US, has tabled a resolution to condemn Nazism and Nazi movements in the highest forum possible (the UN).
The US, along with Canada, and its puppet government in Ukraine, voted against it (in defiance of most of the world's nations).
You would think, with all the technology at the disposal of the US security state, that it might (just might) be able to provide
us with real, irrefutable evidence of a ground invasion. You know, perhaps some high resolution satellite imagery, the odd photo
of a modern Russian tank moving over the Ukrainian border, some chatter from the wires between embassy officials and security
personnel, etc., etc.
But of course we have nothing of the sort. What we have is a desperate corporate media, dutifully parroting the nonsense
from the US State Department, and investing virtually nothing in on-the-ground investigative reporting. But real evidence? We
are in very, VERY short supply of that.
UnsleepingMind -> ponott 31 May 2015 09:34
I can only assume it is as badge of honour if you buy into all the dimwitted propaganda being published by the western
corporate media -- who seem to have a daily axe to grind against the Russian state, but who say nothing about the warmongering
actions of the US. I imagine I would have the same opinion of you if I was to uncritically swallow such toxic rubbish.
UnsleepingMind -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 09:30
'Because we have the right to ban people who invade other countries'.
That's why we've recently arrested George Bush (who, with the help of Tony Blair invaded Iraq and Afghanistan), Barack Obama
(who bombed Libya, engineered coups in Honduras and Ukraine, and is now funding Islamic extremists in Syria)...
We reserve the right to ban, but we use that 'right' to ban official enemies (i.e. anyone daring to follow a geopolitical game
plan that is distinctly at odds with our own).
Also, your suggestion that Putin's Russia has invaded 'other countries' is preposterous. The western media has been spewing
this nonsense for months now and yet there is not a shred of real evidence (including hi-res satellite imagery) to back it up.
And if you are referring to Crimea, let me say this: Russia troops have been staged in Crimea for many, many years; moreover,
the people of Crimea voted to break with Ukraine in a recent referendum (not that that squares with your hectoring rhetoric).
PyrrhicVictory 31 May 2015 09:27
The doors of the gravy train for politicians like Clegg are fast closing. When we exit the EU, then the Brussels gravy train
will also be beyond him. He might, just might, having to start behaving like an honest politician for once and earn a decent wage
based on truth not lies.
johnsmith44 -> NegativeCamber 31 May 2015 09:25
Why dont you go spread democracy to some oil-producing Third World country, together with your poodles the brits? And make
sure you do it properly, so that monstrosities like ISIS are guaranteed?
ex-CIA personnel openly describing their involvement in the dowining of Korean Airlines passenger flight 007 over Siberia on
August 30, 1983 and I believe it becomes apparent who downed MH-17.
Jerome Fryer -> Popeyes 31 May 2015 09:11
We're the global overlords, and so second-rate nations aren't allowed to reciprocate our petulant actions. When they do
so it causes some people to question the assumed status of the 'Western' hegemony (and our claimed system of morally superior
'values'). We can't allow that sort of thing, Popeyes.
davidncldl 31 May 2015 09:10
The Guardian has a clear pro-EU/USA position on the new cold war against Russia. Mr Putin is their democratically
elected leader and he is enormously popular. Only an imbecile would be surprised or indignant about Russia retaliating for unjust
EU/US sanctions. What do the globalisers and bankers' friends at the Guardian expect? I imagine you think that the ruination of
the Venezuelan and Russian economies by the manipulation of the oil price is just "free market" activity.
Hass Castorp 31 May 2015 09:07
"More than 6,200 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists."
This is a language of propaganda, Guardian. Last i checked Guardian advertised to be a newspaper, not a bulletin of The Ministry
of Truth.
My reformulation; "More than 6200 (in some estimates up to 50.000) have been killed and up to 1 million civilians displaced
(who mostly fled to Russia) by Ukrainian government troops and private terrorist kommandos of Ukrainian oligarchs."
Jerome Fryer -> henry919 31 May 2015 09:03
The only way to effectively block people from other regions (blanket censor them, in other words) would be to positively identify
the source. All that you would likely achieve is blocking actual individual commentators and letting through the government astroturfers.
Why you would want to resort to such tactics is worth asking. The 'Western side' may be losing the propaganda war with
Russia because our lies are bigger and harder to sell -- rather than Pooty-poot being cleverer.
Repeated debunked claims in our media are also going to be far more damaging than anything similar in Russia. The problem
doesn't lie with those you are asserting to be 'trolls' that are disputing the reporting -- the problem lies with the reporting.
(If your argument must be protected against criticism then it is a weak argument.)
@anarchyst I see stuff written about the Vietnam war and it never fails they don't talk
at all about the whole picture. The Vietnam war was a war to stop the spread of Communism in
Southeast Asia. In that aspect it won some and lost some. Vietnam had nothing to do with oil
or Colonialism. Any look at a map would show it's vast strategic location for the Communist.
It has one the best ports in Asia. They talk about Tet defeating us. Nothing could be further
from the truth. It ended forever the Viet Cong in the South. From then on all the attacks
were from the North. The next big attack...
And in Viet Nam the North sent 150,000 men south with as much armor as the Wehrmacht had
in many WW II engagements. That was in 1973, and of that 150,000 fewer than 50,000 men and no
armor returned to the North, at a cost of under 1,000 American casualties. Most would count
that an outstanding victory.
(Alas, in 1975 North Viet Nam had another army of over 100,000 and sent it South; the
Democratic Congress voted our South Vietnamese 20 cartridges and 2 hand grenades per man, but
refused naval and air support; Saigon predictably became Ho Chi Minh city as we pushed
helicopters off the decks of out carriers in our frantic evacuation; but that is hardly the
fault of the US military).
The South lost when they ran out of ammunition. During the time we were fighting in
Vietnam all the other Asian countries with their own Commies attacking them were fighting
also. Many of them won. The ones that fell like Cambodia paid a harsh price. By all
measurement of what we went to Vietnam for we didn't lose. It did stop the spread of
Communism to all Asia. Rarely in any wars do you get all you want.
The Democrat party has been saying that the Vets fought a losing war when in actuality the
Democrats directly are responsible for the loss of South Vietnam. There are only a few
highways leading South and they were packed with tanks and troop transport in 75. It would
have been a complete turkey shoot like the war in Kuwait. We even had battleships at that
time that could have pounded them from the coast. If we would have attacked it would have
probably caused them such a defeat that they would have never attacked again maybe even the
government of the North would have been overthrown by the people for such incompetence.
Unfortunately the Nixon was gone and Ford was directly told if he helped the Vietnamese with
air power he would be impeached.
The idea that the Vietnam vets died for nothing is a huge psyops by the Democrats. The
South had defeated all the guerillas. All they needed was support to hold off the North and
the Democrats sold them out. If the South Vietnamese had not fell it's very likely that the
Cambodian Genocide would have never happened.
The Democrats had said the war was lost so many times that they had to prove it so by
actually losing it.
we were fighting in Vietnam all the other Asian countries with their own Commies
attacking them were fighting also. Many of them won. The ones that fell like Cambodia paid
a harsh price.
On the other hand, the Khmer Rouge victory in Cambodia was precipitated by the U.S.
bombings:
Estimates vary widely on the number of civilian casualites inflicted by the campaign;
however,as many as 500,000 people died as a direct result of the bombings while perhaps
hundreds of thousands more died from the effects of displacement, disease or starvation
during this period.
The Khmer Rouge, previously a marginalized guerrilla group, propagandized the bombing
campaign to great effect; by the CIA's own intelligence estimates, the US bombing campaign
was a key factor in the increase in popular support for the Khmer Rouge rebels. After their
victory in 1975, the Khmer Rouge oversaw a period in which another one-to-two million
Cambodians died from execution, hunger and forced labour.
May 28, 2018 - A Memorial to the Great War Disaster
Books about World War I are not popular in the USA because they are depressing. The
world's great European powers destroyed a generation of men in pointless bloody battles. Few
Americans realize that World War I was America's worst foreign policy blunder that killed
millions and set the stage for World War II.
When the "Great War" began in 1914, royals and generals hoped for swift victories.
However, advances in technology, mostly machine guns and rapid fire artillery, allowed
concentrated firepower to annihilate attacking formations. The war in France bogged down into
a bloody stalemate and the construction of fortified positions ensured that any offensive
would grind to a stop. The king of England and Germany were first cousins who grew up
together, so a peaceful resolution was likely in 1916.
The problem was that British bankers had loaned its government lots of money and most
could not be repaid. They wanted to win the war so they could loot Germany by requiring
Germans to pay reparations so the British government could repay them. If they could lure the
powerful USA to join the war, victory was assured. They blocked peace efforts and used their
agents of influence to manipulate the USA into joining the war. Soon after President Wilson
was elected with the promise to stay out the war, he worked with Congress to declare war.
As a result, the war dragged on for two more bloody years before enough American men and
material arrived in France to turn the tide. The war was unpopular back home, leading Wilson
to censor the US mail by blocking anti-war newsletters and magazines. He threw thousands of
political opponents in jail, implemented a draft to fill out the Army, and sent these
reluctant Americans into battle with little training and poor equipment. The Americans fought
bravely, but the Germans had three years of combat experience and chewed up American units
foolishly thrown into frontal attacks that had little chance of success. After four years of
war, the Germans had no more manpower to replace losses, and surrendered based on a just
peace promised by President Wilson. That never happened and Germany was looted and
humiliated, which led to the rise of the Nazis and World War II.
So this Memorial Day, remember the 116,516 Americans President Wilson killed in that
senseless war. Moreover, the American intervention extended the war and resulted in World War
II. American GIs slaughter Germans so British bankers could collect debts, with interest! I
was inspired to write this blog post after reading the brilliant David Stockman's recent
essay about America's disastrous intervention in World War I.
https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2018/05/16/why-the-empire-never-sleeps-the-indispensable-nation-folly-part-2/
I have to agree with much of what stated in his reply. But I would like to also add my own
in-depth notes
I tend to concentrate my military studies on World War I (in addition to the "War for
Southern Independence" and the inter-war years (1919-1939)). And as everyone here has
concluded, World War I was an abomination of an atrocity.
Professor Bacevich, a man I have great respect for, did however make some minor but
critical errors in this piece.
Kaiser Wilhelm had no desire to enter into a world conflagration. When he realized that
events were spinning out of control, he did everything in his power to contact his cousin,
the Russian Czar, to request that Russian Mobilization be halted, the actual cause of the
start of the conflict. Due to the fact that diplomacy, unlike the military (which had adopted
wireless and wired communications), was still using traditional methods of face-to-face
discussion or formal letters for diplomacy, the Kaiser was unable to get through to his
cousin in time to stop what the Czar most likely could not halt in any event. Mobilization of
forces at the time had taken on a life of their own due to the technologies of modernized
train transport.
In 1915 or 1916, the German high command attempted to offer to negotiate peace with
Britain and France but Britain, with the war being run basically by Churchill (a warmonger of
the first order) refused to talk to the Germans, since he loathed them for whatever
reasons.
The war was won by Germany in the winter of 1917 at which point the megalomaniacal Woodrow
Wilson pushed the US into the conflict with his god-like notion that he could create peace on
Earth. The man was truly clinically insane (but functional) as much recent documentation has
attested to (see the late Thomas Fleming's, "Illusion of Victory" for a thrill ride through
Wilson's addled thinking).
Had the US not entered the war, there would have been an amenable peace developed in 1917
among the European belligerents. And probably as a result, no World War II.
England was the cause of the war indirectly with her centuries old "balance of power"
politics applied to continental Europe. In this vein, fearful of the loss of her dominance on
the high seas as a result of the Kaiser's excellent buildup of the Kaiserliche Marine
(Imperial Navy), which in turn would threaten her empire, the British military started to
collude with the French military, I believe as early as 1906, to develop joint operational
plans in case of war with Germany. This latter of course, the British were very much hoping
would happen. And with Churchill being one of the most influential cabinet members on the
matter, there was little doubt that Britain would need very little pretext to enter a
conflict.
However, it was France's alliance with Russia that was directly responsible for the
initiation of the entire conflagration. This alliance was centered upon loans to Russia from
France for Russian domestic development and French fears that if Germany attacked her she
would be left on her own to defend herself. Russia agreed in principal to ally herself with
France but used the French loans instead to rebuild her military (though it did her little
good against superior German arms).
Germany, bound in alliance with Austro-Hungary, did in fact support Austria's punitive
strike into Serbia and provided what some have called a "blank check", which provided for
military and financial support as a result of the alliance. Austria's military, one which had
a very spotty historical record of being on and off again as far as quality was concerned,
was definitively off in 1914 and was summarily defeated by superior Serbian Forces.
Franz-Josef of Austria had no expectation of a world war when he committed Austria to such
an incursion into Serbian territory and by that time no else did either as a result of the
assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand since royal assassinations had become pretty common
place in Europe from 1880 onward. However, on the Austrian side we have general Conrad von
Hotzendorf to thank for this strike at Serbia. He hated Serbia probably as much as Churchill
hated the Germans but Conrad had good reason to since the Balkan nation was always causing
all sorts of problems on the Austro-Hungarian borders. Unfortunately, Conrad was not all that
good a military man and cost Austrian hundreds of thousands of combatant deaths during the
conflict.
As a result, this assassination, a real non-event, has been touted to school children ever
since as the cause of World War I. In reality, it was simply window dressing for idiots in
the US educational system to latch onto.
The reaction of Russia to the attack on Serbia was to fully mobilize her military, which
up through World War II has always been seen as an imminent sign of war.
This automatically dragged France into war, which in turn dragged England as a result of
the secret military partnership. Austria then was forced to follow suit and formally declare
war, which brought the final player into the conflict, Germany, who with the exception of
some in the German high command really had questions about engaging in such a widening war,
which was supposed to be a localized conflict.
Seeing that there was no hope to ending the conflict on amenable terms, the Kaiser
abdicated in 1918 and fled for the Royal Netherlands where he was taken in and granted
political asylum. However, by this time General Ludendorf had become a de-facto military
dictator of Germany. And though both he and his senior military aide. Max Hoffman, , who did
the majority of the planning, developed superior battlefield strategy, Ludendorf's political
decisions caused untold problems for the German social infrastructure, some of which was a
reaction to the new pressures that US Forces were finally bringing to bare on German
arms.
The original number of deaths for World War I began at around ten million but had been
upgraded over the years to around twenty million. However, this does not take into account
the highly damaging effects of what would become known as the Spanish Flu in 1918. Recent
research into this aspect of the war is now postulating of up to sixty million deaths all
told.
The Spanish Flu was actually a very mild flu; not the devastating epidemic that again
idiot educators and historians have touted over the years. What made this particular strain
of Flu so devastating was not the virus itself but the need for adequate health-care and
recovery. However, within the field armies that were facing each other, the deprivations that
the war had brought to continental Europe, and the very poorly developed 33 US training camps
in the States, affected personnel and civilian populace did not have the proper facilities
and health-care required to allow them to recover quickly and properly from this disease. The
result was that patients lingered in terrible conditions making recovery impossible and
allowing death to ensue.
Finally, it was not just British bankers who wanted their loans paid back but the US banks
desired it as well for their own loans; a first in the annals of military history between
allies. However, the Wilson Administration never considered the US an ally to Britain or
France. It instead viewed itself as an "associated nation", whatever that meant. However,
Wilson was famously known for his ridiculous vagueness and slogans ("saving the world for
democracy", which even at the time no one could quite figure out the meaning of). As a
result, the US would not sign a peace agreement until 1922.
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading
British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human,
and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.
Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate
attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again
with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.
But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their
profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the
instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so
many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for
the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great,
big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is
no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side
will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently
the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this
curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of
furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as
earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and
all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who
ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man
will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that
the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of
grotesque self-deception'.
- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)
Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its
war. By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence. And given
our reliance on a professional military, shooting citizen-soldiers who want to opt out of
the fight is no longer required.
Yep, I was looking for a quote like this. We have a mercenary military now so the ruling
elite can send them anywhere they want with little agitation from the general public. That's
why I advised my son not to join, not that he was leaning in that direction anyway.
(Grin)
I posted this in another thread, but here it is more appropriate:
That's what happens when hubris replaces strategy. In the US today only MIC has a strategy:
produce any fakes necessary to keep the gravy train rolling. The leadership of the country is
wholly owned by MIC and allied forces (AIPAC is one of those) and mostly resembles biblical
blind lead by the blind
Andrew J. Bacevich is hard at work writing a book about how we got Donald J. Trump.
Buying his book would be a waste of money I can tell you for free.
Trump was elected out of the sheer desperation of a large number of Americans fed up to
death with a corrupt government and noxious [neo]liberalism. period.
Unfortunately he was a fraud ..but the most desperate are still clinging, hoping against
hope.
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they
supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.
I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public,
always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or
that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public
about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what
is wrong with the U.S. today.
As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate
stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for
there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to
govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself
surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with
them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving –
they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia.
Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with
dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly
beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored.
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap?
You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to
JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.
Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They
can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge.
CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy
the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your
bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison
CIA SIS or GTFO.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises - and he was quickly beaten
down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored. While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected,
salaried members of the elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are
Pharaohs and massively powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.
Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then
a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must
divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here
the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are
extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.
I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could
beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and
Pharaohs because they are global.
" The United States of
Amnesia ." That's what Gore Vidal once called us. We remember what we find it convenient to
remember and forget everything else. That forgetfulness especially applies to the history of
others. How could their past, way back when, have any meaning for us today?
Well, it just might. Take the European conflagration of 1914-1918, for example.
You may not have noticed. There's no reason why you should have, fixated as we all are on
the daily torrent of presidential tweets and the flood of mindless rejoinders they elicit. But
let me note for the record that the centenary of the conflict once known as The Great War is
well underway and before the present year ends will have concluded.
Indeed, a hundred years ago this month, the 1918 German Spring Offensive -- codenamed
Operation Michael -- was sputtering to an unsuccessful conclusion. A last desperate German
gamble, aimed at shattering Allied defenses and gaining a decisive victory, had fallen short.
In early August of that year, with large numbers of our own doughboys now on the front lines, a
massive Allied counteroffensive was to commence, continuing until the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when an armistice finally took effect and the guns
fell silent.
In the years that followed, Americans demoted The Great War. It became World War I, vaguely
related to but overshadowed by the debacle next in line, known as World War II. Today, the
average citizen knows little about that earlier conflict other than that it preceded and
somehow paved the way for an even more brutal bloodletting. Also, on both occasions, the bad
guys spoke German.
So, among Americans, the war of 1914-1918 became a neglected stepsister of sorts, perhaps in
part because the United States only got around to suiting up for that conflict about halfway
through the fourth quarter. With the war of 1939-1945 having been sacralized as the moment when
the Greatest Generation saved humankind, the war-formerly-known-as-The-Great-War collects dust
in the bottom drawer of American collective consciousness.
From time to time, some politician or newspaper columnist will resurrect the file labeled
"August 1914," the grim opening weeks of that war, and sound off about the dangers of
sleepwalking into a devastating conflict that nobody wants or understands. Indeed, with
Washington today having become a carnival of buncombe
so sublimely preposterous that even that great journalistic iconoclast H.L. Mencken might have
been struck dumb, ours is perhaps an apt moment for just such a reminder.
Yet a different aspect of World War I may possess even greater relevance to the American
present. I'm thinking of its duration: the longer it lasted, the less sense it made. But on it
went, impervious to human control like the sequence of Biblical plagues that God had inflicted on the
ancient Egyptians.
So the relevant question for our present American moment is this: once it becomes apparent
that a war is a mistake, why would those in power insist on its perpetuation, regardless of
costs and consequences? In short, when getting in turns out to have been a bad idea,
why is getting out so difficult, even (or especially) for powerful nations that
presumably should be capable of exercising choice on such matters? Or more bluntly, how did the
people in charge during The Great War get away with inflicting such extraordinary damage on the
nations and peoples for which they were responsible?
For those countries that endured World War I from start to finish -- especially Great
Britain, France, and Germany -- specific circumstances provided their leaders with an excuse
for suppressing second thoughts about the cataclysm they had touched off.
Among them were:
mostly compliant civilian populations deeply loyal to some version of
King and Country, further kept in line by unremitting
propaganda that minimized dissent; draconian discipline -- deserters and malingerers faced
firing squads -- that
maintained order in the ranks (most of the time) despite the unprecedented scope of the
slaughter; the comprehensive industrialization of war, which ensured a seemingly endless supply
of the weaponry, munitions, and other equipment necessary for outfitting mass conscript armies
and replenishing losses as they occurred.
Economists would no doubt add sunk costs to the mix. With so much treasure already
squandered and so many lives already lost, the urge to press on a bit longer in hopes of
salvaging at least some meager benefit in return for what (and who) had been done in was
difficult to resist.
Even so, none of these, nor any combination of them, can adequately explain why, in the
midst of an unspeakable orgy of self-destruction, with staggering losses and nations in ruin,
not one monarch or president or premier had the wit or gumption to declare: Enough! Stop this
madness!
Instead, the politicians sat on their hands while actual authority devolved onto the likes
of British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, French Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Petain,
and German commanders Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. In other words, to solve a
conundrum they themselves had created, the politicians of the warring states all deferred to
their warrior chieftains. For their part, the opposing warriors jointly subscribed to a
perverted inversion of strategy best summarized by Ludendorff
as "punch a hole [in the front] and let the rest follow." And so the conflict dragged on and
on.
The Forfeiture of Policy
Put simply, in Europe, a hundred years ago, war had become politically purposeless. Yet the
leaders of the world's principal powers -- including
Allow me to suggest that the United States should consider taking a page out of Lenin's
playbook. Granted, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, such a suggestion might
have smacked of treason. Today, however, in the midst of our
never-ending efforts to expunge terrorism, we might look to Lenin for guidance on how to
get our priorities straight.
As was the case with Great Britain, France, and Germany a century ago, the United States now
finds itself mired in a senseless war. Back then, political leaders in London, Paris, and
Berlin had abrogated control of basic policy to warrior chieftains. Today, ostensibly
responsible political leaders in Washington have done likewise. Some of those latter-day
American warrior chieftains who gather in the White House or testify on Capitol Hill may wear
suits rather than uniforms, but all remain enamored with the twenty-first-century equivalent of
Ludendorff's notorious dictum.
Of course, our post-9/11 military enterprise -- the undertaking once known as the Global War
on Terrorism -- differs from The Great War in myriad ways. The ongoing hostilities in which
U.S. forces are involved in various parts of the Islamic world do not qualify, even
metaphorically, as "great." Nor will there be anything great about an
armed conflict with Iran , should members of the current administration get their
apparent
wish to provoke one.
Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its war.
By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence. And given our
reliance on a professional military, shooting citizen-soldiers who want to opt out of the fight
is no longer required.
There are also obvious differences in scale, particularly when it comes to the total number
of casualties involved. Cumulative deaths from the various U.S. interventions, large and small,
undertaken since 9/11, number in the hundreds of thousands . The precise tally
of those lost during the European debacle of 1914-1918 will never be known, but the total
probably surpassed
13 million .
Even so, similarities between the Great War as it unspooled and our own
not-in-the-least-great war(s) deserve consideration. Today, as then, strategy -- that is, the
principled use of power to achieve the larger interests of the state -- has ceased to exist.
Indeed, war has become an excuse for ignoring the absence of strategy.
For years now, U.S. military officers and at least some national security aficionados have
referred to ongoing military hostilities as " the Long War ." To describe our conglomeration of
spreading conflicts as "long" obviates any need to suggest when or under what circumstances (if
any) they might actually end. It's like the meteorologist forecasting a "long winter" or the
betrothed telling his or her beloved that theirs will be a "long engagement." The implicit
vagueness is not especially encouraging.
Some high-ranking officers of late have offered a more forthright explanation of what "long"
may really mean. In the Washington Post , the journalist Greg Jaffe
recently reported that "winning for much of the U.S. military's top brass has come to be
synonymous with staying put." Winning, according to Air Force General Mike Holmes, is simply
"not losing. It's staying in the game."
Not so long ago, America's armed forces adhered to a concept called victory , which
implied conclusive, expeditious, and economical mission accomplished. No more. Victory
, it turns out, is too tough to achieve, too restrictive, or, in the words of Army
Lieutenant General Michael Lundy, "too absolute." The United States military now grades itself
instead on a curve. As Lundy puts it, "winning is more of a continuum," an approach that allows
you to claim mission accomplishment without, you know, actually accomplishing anything.
It's like soccer for six-year-olds. Everyone tries hard so everyone gets a trophy.
Regardless of outcomes, no one goes home feeling bad. In the U.S. military's case, every
general gets a medal (or, more likely, a
chest full of them).
"These days," in the Pentagon, Jaffe writes, "senior officers talk about 'infinite
war.'"
I would like to believe that Jaffe is pulling our leg. But given that he's a conscientious
reporter with excellent sources, I fear he knows what he's talking about. If he's right, as far
as the top brass are concerned, the Long War has now officially gone beyond long. It has been
deemed endless and is accepted as such by those who preside over its conduct.
Strategic Abomination
In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military
bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term,
but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.
Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called
defense contractors, and the " emergency
men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the
national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some
quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits,
promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course,
that's part of the problem.
Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they
come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service
rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this:
in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they
have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation,
they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning
hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and
departing after a couple years to
make way for someone else to give it a try.
It tells us something about our prevailing standards of generalship that, by resurrecting an
old idea -- counterinsurgency -- and applying it with temporary success to one particular
theater of war, General David Petraeus acquired a reputation as a military genius. If Petraeus
is a military genius, so, too, is General George McClellan. After winning the Battle of Rich
Mountain in 1861, newspapers
dubbed McClellan "the Napoleon of the Present War." But the action at Rich Mountain decided
nothing and McClellan didn't win the Civil War any more than Petraeus won the Iraq War.
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they supposedly
report and from whom they nominally take their orders. Of course, under the heading of
politician, we quickly come to our current commander-in-chief. Yet it would be manifestly
unfair to blame President Trump for the mess he inherited, even if he is presently engaged in
making matters worse .
The failure is a collective one, to which several presidents and both political parties have
contributed over the years. Although the carnage may not be as horrific today as it was on the
European battlefields on the Western and Eastern Fronts, members of our political class are
failing us as strikingly and repeatedly as the political leaders of Great Britain, France, and
Germany failed their peoples back then. They have abdicated responsibility for policy to our
own homegrown equivalents of Haig, Foch, Petain, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff. Their failure is
unforgivable.
Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election
already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to
declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white,
that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis acknowledges that U.S. instructors are
training Ukrainian military units at a base in western Ukraine. Washington also has
approved two important arms sales to Kiev's ground forces in just the past nine months. The
first transaction in December 2017 was limited to small arms that at least could be portrayed
as purely defensive weapons. That agreement included the export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems,
ammunition, and associated parts and accessories, a sale valued at $41.5 million.
A transaction in April 2018 was more serious. Not only was it larger
($47 million) , it included far more lethal weaponry, particularly 210
Javelin anti-tank missiles -- the kind of weapons that Barack Obama's administration had
declined to give Kiev.
Needless to say, the Kremlin
was not pleased about either sale. Moreover, Congress soon passed legislation in May that
authorized $250 million in military assistance, including lethal weaponry, to Ukraine in 2019.
Congress had twice voted for military support on a similar scale during the last years of
Obama's administration, but the White House blocked implementation. The Trump administration
cleared that obstacle out of the way in December 2017 at the same time that it approved the
initial small-weapons sale. The passage of the May 2018 legislation means that the path is now
open for a dramatic escalation of U.S. military backing for Kiev.
On September 1, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker disclosed during an interview
with TheGuardian that Washington's future military aid to Kiev would
likely involve weapons sales to Ukraine's air force and navy as well as the army. "The Javelins
are mainly symbolic and it's not clear if they would ever be used," Aric Toler, a research
scholar at the Atlantic Council, asserted
. One could well dispute his sanguine conclusion, but even Toler conceded: "Support for the
Ukrainian navy and air defence would be a big deal. That would be far more significant."
Volker's cavalier attitude about U.S. arms sales to a government locked in a crisis with
Russia epitomizes the arrogance and tone-deaf nature of the views that too many U.S. foreign
policy officials exhibit regarding the sensitive Ukraine issue. "We can have a conversation
with Ukraine like we would with any other country about what do they need. I think that there's
going to be some discussion about naval capability because as you know their navy was basically
taken by Russia [when the Soviet Union dissolved]. And so they need to rebuild a navy and they
have very limited air capability as well. I think we'll have to look at air defence."
One suspects that Americans would be incensed at comparable actions by Moscow if the
geo-strategic situations were reversed. Imagine if Russia (even a democratic Russia) had
emerged from the wreckage of the Cold War as the undisputed global superpower, and a weakened
United States had to watch as the Kremlin expanded a powerful, Russian-led military alliance to
America's borders, conducted alliance war games within sight of U.S. territory, interfered in
Canada's internal political affairs to oust a democratically elected pro-American government,
and then pursued growing military ties with the new, anti-U.S. government in Ottawa. Yet that
would be disturbingly similar to what Washington has done regarding NATO policy and U.S.
relations with Ukraine.
Moreover, although Kiev's cheerleaders in the Western (especially U.S.) media like to
portray Ukraine as a beleaguered democracy that plays the role of David to Russia's evil
Goliath, the reality is far murkier. Putin's government overstates matters when it alleges that
Ukraine's 2014 Maidan revolution was a U.S.-orchestrated coup that brought outright fascists to
power in Kiev. Nevertheless, that version contains more than a little truth. Prominent,
powerful U.S. figures, most notably the late Senator John McCain and Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, openly sided with
demonstrators seeking to unseat Ukraine's elected government. Indeed, Nuland was caught on tape with U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt scheming about the desired composition of a new government
in Kiev.
It is unfair to portray Ukraine's current administration led by President Petro Poroshenko
as a neo-fascist regime. Post-revolution elections appear to have been reasonably free and
fair, and there are major factions that are committed to genuine democratic values. But Ukraine
also is hardly a model of Western-style democracy. Not only is it afflicted with extensive
graft and corruption, but some extreme nationalist and even
neo-Nazi groups play a significant role in the "new" Ukraine. The notoriously fascist Azov
Battalion, for example, continues to occupy a prominent position in Kiev's efforts to defeat
separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region. Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the
self-declared Donetsk People's Republic in the pro-Russia rebel-occupied city of Donetsk,
was assassinated on September 1 and officials there and in Russia are blaming Kiev. The
Ukrainian government has denied involvement.
Other ultranationalist factions act as domestic militias that attempt to intimidate more
moderate Ukrainians. Even the Poroshenko government itself has adopted troubling censorship
measures and other autocratic policies. Officials in both the Obama and Trump administration
have taken a much too casual attitude toward U.S. cooperation
with extremist elements and a deeply flawed Ukrainian government.
Both the danger of stoking tensions with Moscow and becoming too close to a regime in Kiev
that exhibits disturbing features should caution the Trump administration against boosting
military aid to Ukraine. It is an unwise policy on strategic as well as moral grounds. Trump
administration officials should refuse to be intimidated or stampeded into forging a risky and
unsavory alliance with Kiev out of fear of being portrayed as excessively "soft" toward Russia.
Instead, the president and his advisers need to spurn efforts to increase U.S. support for
Ukraine. A good place to start would be to restore the Obama administration's refusal to
approve arms sales to Kiev. Washington must not pour gasoline on a geo-strategic fire that
could lead to a full-blown crisis between the United States and Russia.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute and a contributing editor at TAC , is the author of 10 books, the contributing
editor of 10 books, and the author of more than 700 articles on international affairs .
"... The crisis in Ukraine is a direct result of the two policies of NATO expansion and EU enlargement, which led NATO to declare Ukraine (and Georgia) will be NATO members at numerous NATO summits and in other fora, led the EU to push too hard and too early for an association agreement with the corrupt Viktor Yanukovych government, and led the West, especially Washington, to lend opposition-promotion assistance to revolutionaries and endorse a clearly illegal oligarch-ultranationalist revolt in February 2014 despite an agreement that essentially ensured Yanukovych's departure from the presidency in ten months. In Syria, Putin's Russia has won. Regime change is over. ..."
Rather than dealing with secondary issues, those which are easiest to resolve, or those in
which we have common interests, contacts must address the core problems in the inter-state
US-Russian or larger Western-Russian relationship. Those issues are NATO expansion, EU
expansion, U.S. missile defense, Ukraine, Syria, and interference in each other's domestic
politics.
Rather, than expanding Western institutions in complete disregard of Russian
interests, the West must work closely with Moscow. The West must acknowledge its responsibility
in the making of the original crisis in Kiev, which equals if not exceeds that of Moscow's in
deepening the crisis in Crimea and Donbass.
The crisis in Ukraine is a direct result of the two
policies of NATO expansion and EU enlargement, which led NATO to declare Ukraine (and Georgia)
will be NATO members at numerous NATO summits and in other fora, led the EU to push too hard
and too early for an association agreement with the corrupt Viktor Yanukovych government, and
led the West, especially Washington, to lend opposition-promotion assistance to revolutionaries
and endorse a clearly illegal oligarch-ultranationalist revolt in February 2014 despite an
agreement that essentially ensured Yanukovych's departure from the presidency in ten months. In
Syria, Putin's Russia has won. Regime change is over.
The U.S. in its hubris miscalculated in
going a bridge too far. Ambition led to supply weapons either intentionally or accidentally --
and in denial of the obvious -- to Islamists and jihadists. This was a direct consequence of US
President Barak Obama's haste to carry forth his gravely misguided Muslim Brotherhood-based
regime change strategy in the Islamic world. Syria's longstanding ties to Moscow and the
presence of North Caucasus-based mujahedin within the ranks first of the Al Qa`ida-affiliated
'Jabhat al-Nusra' jihadi group and then of the Islamic State or ISIS prompted Putin's limited
and strategically successful intervention.
More globally, the West has been and remains the
'champion' when it comes to interference in the politics of other states. For financial reasons
alone, Russia cannot hold a candle to US efforts in this regard, no less those of the entire
West. Rather than seeking to dominate or willfully 'transforming' Eurasia in the Western image,
the West should more gently propose democratization and work on strengthening its own
democratic order to serve as a model for non- and less democratic states to emulate.
Those
living in non- or less democratic states who want change have access to all the information
they need on the Internet, except in the most authoritarian countries. Even in the latter,
access is possible if more difficult. The native population and opposition leaders understand
the intricacies of their nation's culture far better than outsiders do and can therefore better
fashion a peaceful, stable regime transformation. If this is not what they want, then they are
unlikely to establish a democratic order when they seize power.
Change the Goal and Strategy
The core problem in Western-Russian relations has been Western, especially, NATO expansion.
NATO expansion, carried forth on the back of EU expansion, effectively 'militarized' Western
democracy-promotion and EU expansion, insulting Russian 'honor' and trust in the West in the
wake of Cold War-ending Western promises that NATO would not expand beyond reunified Germany
and turning Russia away from democracy. Washington and Brussels must discard, therefore, its
basic goal of expanding the community of democracies in brinksmanship-like
fashion–everywhere and immediately, regardless of those expansions' effects on the
Russian and Chinese geostrategic calculation. This means abandoning the strategy of achieving
that goal: NATO and EU expansion. These two prongs of the main strategy, especially NATO
expansion, have added greater cost of driving Russia into China's increasingly powerful arms,
as I predicted a quarter of a century ago.
New Goal and Strategy
Regarding security, the West
should seek to integrate Europe and Eurasia first in the area of negotiating ongoing conflicts
and preventing new conflicts by reinvigorating the Organization of Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) as the main multilateral forum for Western-Eurasian relations. It should also
become the locus of negotiations between NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) on building a new European security architecture (NESA). During the life of the NESA
negotiations, the West should institute an openly declared moratorium on NATO expansion. After
such the NESA is in place negotiations might begin with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) on a Eurasia-wide security architecture. Similarly, the European Union should learn from
its misbegotten unilateral expansionism and 'Eastern Partnership' and seek to negotiate a
gradual integration of the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
... ... ...
There is very likely to be some
agreement towards extending the START nuclear arms treaty by executive order as well as
negotiating a replacement treaty to be signed at the end of the first or beginning of a second
Trump term.
For the Ukrainian crisis, Trump might propose the creation of a US-Russian working
group to assist the Minsk process. Should Trump be convinced that only US involvement can
resolve the issue, perhaps the group could be incorporated into the Minsk process. He might
also hint that in return for some Moscow concessions on Ukraine, such as backing a more
expanded version of the proposed peacekeeping mission beyond the line of contact, he might be
willing to put pressure on Kiev to finally fulfill its Minsk agreement obligation to engage a
dialogue with the Donbass rebel regions' representatives:
(1) on the modalities related to
conducting elections in the Donbass,
(2) on a Ukrainian law to be adopted according to Minsk-2
'On the temporary order of local government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk
regions,' or
(3) 'with respect to the future operation of these areas on the basis of the Law,'
or, for that matter,
(4) on any other subject related to the crisis. Washington pressure on
Kiev to talk directly with the rebels may be possible now that four years too late some of the
Washington institutions that supported the Maidan revolt and illegal overthrow of Yanukovych
such as the Atlantic Council and Freedom House, are waking up to the neofascist threat on the
edges of the Maidan regime and in society.
About the Author – Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., Expert Analyst at Corr
Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a
Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group,
San Jose, California, www.cetisresearch.org .
Dr. Hahn is the author of Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the 'New Cold
War (McFarland Publishers, 2017) and three previously and well-received books:
Russia's Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet
Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002); Russia's Islamic
Threat (Yale University Press, 2007); and The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global
Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland Publishers, 2014).He has
published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both
English and Russian language media and has served as a consultant and provided expert testimony
to the U.S. government.
Dr. Hahn also has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco
State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. He
has been a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies and the Kennan Institute in Washington DC as well as the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University.
Lyttenburgh, July 7, 2018 at 6:25 am
"and agreed to meet in neighboring Sweden"
Finland.
"This suggests the level of distrust Putin has towards Washington, his low expectations for a successful summit, and the high
price he is likely to demand for concessions on his part."
It suggests nothing of the sort. You are too dramatic.
"[T]he approach of dealing with issues that are easiest to resolve or where we have common interests alone is insufficient
and a non-starter as far as putting the relationship where it should be. By definition, an approach that seeks to avoid areas
where there are disagreements will not resolve a deeply troubled relationship that is putting international security and
peace at risk. Only addressing the core differences complicating relations can a qualitatively new relationship be forged."
Finally someone is willing to admit that! You can't willy-nilly go and ask your neighbor to borrow some sugar after you
wrecked his fence and expect him to "cooperate" on such small issue out of sheer goodness.
"It also means abandoning the approach of designing policies from hubris rooted in the sense that Western democracy is
morally superior to authoritarianism. Although the latter is true"
In what way? I (and quite a lot of people) see particular Western "democracy" as morally bankrupt compared to what it
seemingly randomly calls "authoritarianism"
"In Syria, Putin's Russia has won."
And that writes a man who detest the term, devoting so much ink and time to show to the ignorant that, no – it's Russia's
Putin. Why not say Russia, or Moscow, or even "Pro-Assad coalition"?
"Rather than seeking to dominate or willfully 'transforming' Eurasia in the Western image, the West should more gently
propose democratization and work on strengthening its own democratic order to serve as a model for non- and less democratic
states to emulate."
What, you forgot the immortal words of Paul Wolfowitz so soon? For, you see, "We Are An Empire Now". Crawling back in the
shell won't help to solve the domestic very partisan issues – finding a common enemy does that. Your tactics are good for a
neutered housecat of a nation – not for the mighty Great Again (And Forever) lion which both the elite and the commoners of
the West consider their Republic.
" and turning Russia away from democracy."
Wrong. It turned Russia away from liberalism – not democracy. You know the difference, right? Because your following analysis
suggests otherwise:
"Washington and Brussels must discard, therefore, its basic goal of expanding the community of democracies"
"Putin's Russia" is democracy. As well as Poland under PiS, Hungary under Orban and Turkey under Erdogan. Hell, even Ukraine
is democracy! Democracy is just a mode of rule.
"driving Russia into China's increasingly powerful arms"
Yeah, that's bad for the US. For the rest – not so.
"During the life of the NESA negotiations, the West should institute an openly declared moratorium on NATO expansion."
Absolutely meaningless and easily revertible promise that runs directly against the West self-identification as the only
Empire on the planet.
The list of topics of your Grand Design that follows is too far fetch, unrealistic and abstract that they are basically the
equivalent of "charming" Russian naïve natives with the glass beads. As for your fanatical support of the free trade – it's
era has gone. Again. If you fail to grasp that it was precisely Russian objections of EU version of free trade coming to the
Ukraine which lead to 2013-14 conflict on Maidan – well, nothing can help you.
"Non-Western partners must also be willing to sacrifice some of their present interests for the sake of the benefits of
stability and cooperation that will accrue in future. "
Like I said – land for the glass beads.
"In Ukraine, the U.S. must get more involved in the Minsk 2 negotiating process."
No, they shouldn't.
"Without a clear signal from Trump that Washington is not interested in expanding NATO to Ukraine or using the crisis to
isolate Moscow through sanctions and the like and intends to lead the search for a solution, Moscow is unlikely to make any
meaningful concessions."
You don't see it, do you? It's Kiev for whom the conflict is more beneficial. It allows all sort of, yes, authoritarian
things and policies without fear of the "real war". You can silence all your critics with – "but Putin might attack us!" or
"are you a secret separ?!". Kiev has no other viable strategy but to commit an ethnic cleansing of DNR or LNR should they be
returned to it. Simple as that.
BTW – have you read Minsk II accords? How about Kiev fulfils its part first?
"Washington could be able to convince Moscow to abandon its support for the elements of the Iran presence in Syria and
Lebanon that arrived in the context of the Syrian civil war."
Nothing of the sort will happen. Sowing division among potential USA rivals is a viable tactic – but don't take everyone for
an idiot.
"There is very likely to be some agreement towards extending the START nuclear arms treaty"
Wanna bet, that there won't be? Also – nothing of the Ukraine, nothing on NATO. A little something on Syria (officially)
with, maybe, an unofficial concession of the defeat of the West-backed "unicorns".
Tl;dr. This is not about coming Trump-Putin summit. You are just venting off your fantasy about Bright Future. You present
solely pro-US perspective of the summit, enumerating things that Trump must "ask", nay, "demand" either for free or some
minor concessions on his part. Have you ever tried to think what Russia might want of the summit instead?
Salsibury Watchdog, July 11, 2018 at 2:19 am
"It also means abandoning the approach of designing policies from hubris rooted in the sense that Western democracy is
morally superior to authoritarianism. Although the latter is true"
Mr. Khan, if what Western elites are doing to other sovereign nations is 'a democracy' why is it done so covertly: through
murky slash funds, secrets coups and illegal bombings?
I've never seen a referendum asking people in the US whether they wanted to fund another war. Had they been asked, people
would've chosen affordable healthcare, housing and access to education instead, and you know it as well I do.
Yet you're still talking about 'Western democracy'?
A couple of Ukraine-related items caught my attention this week.
The first is a
report by Baylor University professor Serhiy Kudelia which discusses how to bring peace to
Donbass. Kudelia starts by saying that Western states have regarded the resolution of the war
in Donbass as being dependent on changing Russian behaviour. This is insufficient, he says, for
'the successful reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine rests on designing a new institutional
framework that can provide long-term guarantees to civilians and separatist insurgents.'
Kudelia says that academic literature on conflict resolution would suggest four elements to
such a framework:
Autonomy for Donbass within Ukraine. Such autonomy would come with risks, by
entrenching local rulers with patronage networks outside of central control and with the
means to challenge central authority. To reduce these risks, Kudelia suggests giving autonomy
not just to the territories currently controlled by the Donetsk and Lugansk People's
Republics (DPR & LPR), but to the whole of Donbass, thereby bringing within the
autonomous region some more pro-Ukrainian elements of the population as well as groups not
connected to the DPR/LPR power structures. He also suggests devolution of power within the
autonomous region to weaken the potentially disruptive consequences of hostile elements
controlling the region's government.
Transformation of the rebel state and military structures into political
parties. Experience in other countries suggests that when this happens, the prospects of
a successful transition increase substantially.
Comprehensive and unconditional amnesty for everyone involved in the war. For
obvious reasons, rebel leaders won't agree to the first two proposals without an amnesty.
Past experience speaks to the necessity of this measure.
No elections in Donbass for two to three years. Kudelia notes that, 'Holding
elections in a volatile post-conflict environment creates ample opportunities for voter
intimidation, electoral fraud, and disinformation campaigns that could build on
conflict-related divisions.' Kudelia doesn't say who would rule Donbass in the meantime. I
would have to assume that it would mean that the existing authorities would remain in place.
That could be problematic.
With the exception of that last point, these are sensible suggestions. But when boiled down
to their essentials, they don't differ significantly from what is demanded in the Minsk
agreements -- i.e. special status for Donbass and an amnesty. As such, while I don't think that
the leadership of the DPR and LPR would like these proposals, my instincts tell me that they
would be quite acceptable to the Russian government, which would probably be able to coax the
DPR and LPR into agreeing to them. If implemented, the results would be something Moscow could
portray as a success of sorts.
And there's the rub. For that very reason, I can't see Kiev agreeing to any of this.
Kudelia's argument is founded on the idea that there's more going on in Donbass than Russian
aggression. Accepting that something has to be done to 'provide long-term guarantees to
civilians and separatist insurgents' means accepting that there are civilians and insurgents
who need reassuring, not just Russian troops and mercenaries. And that means changing the
entire narrative which Kiev has adopted about the war. So while Kudelia's proposals make sense
(after all, what's the alternative? How could Donbass be reintegrated into Ukraine without
autonomy and an amnesty?), what's lacking is any sense of how to get there.
A large part of the problem, it seems, is the attitude in Kiev. This becomes very clear in
the second item which caught my attention -- an article
on the website Coda entitled 'Now Healthcare is a Weapon of War in Ukraine.' The
article describes how the DPR and LPR are encouraging Ukrainians to come to rebel territory to
receive free medical treatment, and then using this as propaganda to win support for their
cause. This is despite the fact, as the article shows, that the medical facilities in the two
rebel republics are in a very poor state. Author Lily Hyde isn't able to confirm how many
Ukrainians have taken up the rebel offer of free medical aid, but does repeat a claim by the
rebel authorities that 1,200 people have done so.
What interests me here is not the sensationalist headlines about healthcare being
weaponized, but the question of why Ukrainians might feel it necessary to go to the effort of
crossing the front lines to get treatment. And the article provides an answer, namely that
parts of Donbass 'are trapped in a precarious limbo, still under Ukrainian government control
but cut off from key services like healthcare.' The war destroyed much of the healthcare system
in Donbass, but 'Ukraine provides no financial or other incentives for medics to work in
frontline areas', and has done little to repair shattered infrastructure. Healthcare seems to
be a lower priority than fighting 'terrorism'.
While the DPR and LPR use healthcare as a 'weapon' by providing it to people, Kiev has
'weaponized' health in another way -- by depriving people of it. As the article reports:
Kiev has not outlawed receiving medical treatment in occupied Donetsk or Luhnaks. But
collaborating with the separatists -- or supporting their propaganda efforts -- is illegal.
How exactly such charges are defined is not clear, but past experience has taught both
individuals and organizations to be wary of such accusations. The Ukrainian authorities have
investigated non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Ukraine who have provided
foreign-funded medicines and other supplies to occupied Donetsk and Luhansk. NGOs working
there have been banned by the de fact authorities [of the DPR and LPR] on similar charges.
Doctors have found themselves placed on blacklists by both Ukrainian officials and the
separatists, accused of being 'terrorist collaborators' by one side, or of being spies by the
other.
Hyde contrasts the Ukrainian government's policies towards the DPR and LPR with that of
Georgia, where:
The government offers free healthcare for people from Abkhazia, a breakaway territory it
still claims which is now under de facto Russian occupation. The government is building a
modern hospital in the nearest town to the boundary line, aimed at people from Abkhazia.
Essentially, says Hyde, it's 'a question of attitude'. She cites Georgy Tuka, Ukraine's
Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories -- '"There's a wish to punish people,"
Tuka acknowledged.'
That's quite an admission from a government minister.
Even if the details need fleshing out, the institutional framework required to reintegrate
Donbass into Ukraine has been pretty obvious for a long time now. The problem has been getting
people to accept it. It is indeed, therefore, 'a question of attitude'. Sadly, the prevailing
attitude stands firmly in the way of the institutional changes required for peace. The desire
seems to be to punish people, not to reach agreement with them in order to promote
reintegration and reconciliation. The issue, then, is whether this attitude can be changed (and
if so, how) or whether it is now so firmly entrenched that there is nothing which can be done.
Sadly, I fear that it may be the latter.
It's too late for the reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine, there
will be no implementation of any agreement.
-- Ukraine have gone full neo-Nazi
-- language law is offensive to all minorities not just Russian speakers
-- Russophobia is rampant
-- attacks on the orthodox church
Why would anyone in DPR/LPR want to be part of this.
I agree with the other commentators integration of the
Donbass into an aggressive nationalist Ukraine which is not capable of respecting
minority rights is not possible. A more sensible option would be for Ukraine to divide
into a nationalist part and a rusdophone part, this may be in a confederation like
Belgium. As you say the Kiev government wants complete victory rather than a peace based
on reconciliation the conflict will continue at low level if the Kiev regime believes
that they cannot win but will ignite into another major war if they believe that they
can. What should Russia do ? In my opinion provide suitable aid to the people of the
Donbass to ensure their survival and build institutions, a stable and peaceful
Pridnistrovye type situation is the best that can be achieved in the foreseeable future
Just a direct quote from prof. S Kudelia "Peace plan"
linked above:
" Rebel Disarmament, Demobilization, and Conversion
Reaching an agreement on power-sharing is one precondition for beginning to disarm
and demobilize combatants in civil wars. Another component is the inclusion of former
rebels in the competitive political process through "rebel-to-party transformations
Integration of the party tied to former rebel groups can eliminate potential spoilers,
develop stakeholding in the new system, provide non-violent means of conflict
resolution, make them more accountable to their constituency, and increase legitimacy
of the election process and new authority structures. However, some of the positive
effects from rebel conversion depend on the prior organizational structure of
separatist groups and their political wings. Groups with a highly integrated political
and military structure are the least likely to undergo a successful transformation into
an exclusively political force . This points to major challenges in achieving rebel
conversion in Donbas.
The leaders of the armed groups in Donbas have already established their own
political organizations, which participate in separatist-administered elections,
control local councils throughout the conflict region, and engage with residents. They
have turned into what a security analyst Benedetta Berti calls "hybrid
politico-military organizations" tightly linking political activities and armed
struggle. In both "republics" military and political wings are subordinated to a single
leader
However, an integrated political-military structure also presents three
important challenges for successful transition into the political arena. First, in
contrast to political wings of rebel forces in other countries, these organizations
emerged as key tools for separatist governance in DPR and LPR. Their ideological
program promotes independence for these regions and would be incompatible with
participation in Ukraine's institutional politics. Their reintegration would require a
major revision of their principles and goals with an emphasis on accommodation with the
Ukrainian state and acceptance of its jurisdiction over the entire region . Otherwise,
their inclusion in the political process risks deepening the war-based dividing lines
and hampering reconciliation. Second, the centrality of the leaders of these groups in
organizing an armed struggle against Ukrainian forces and their direct involvement in
the fighting delegitimizes them in Ukrainian public opinion and with the central
government . The recently adopted law on "temporarily occupied areas of Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts" describes the ruling structure of the "republics" as an "occupational
administration of the Russian Federation." This further complicates their post-conflict
acceptance as legitimate regional representatives. Hence, leadership turnover in
separatist groups is a crucial precondition for the beginning of their direct talks
with the Ukrainian authorities . Finally, the current control that DPR/LPR leaders
exercise over the separatist military apparatus means that even following disarmament
and demobilization they would maintain some influence over local law enforcement. This,
in turn, would allow these leaders to rely on an informal personal militia after
demobilization or revive the military component of their organizations if they sensed a
threat to their power status.
The conversion of rebel groups into recognized political organizations could be
one of the most complex and contested elements of the transition."
Image
copyright
REUTERS
Image
caption
Alexander
Zakharchenko in a 2017 photo
A leader of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Alexander
Zakharchenko, has been killed in an explosion at a cafe in Donetsk city.
"The head of the DNR [Donetsk People's Republic]... has died as the
result of a terrorist attack," Zakharchenko's spokeswoman told AFP news
agency.
Russia's foreign ministry said it suspected Ukraine of organising the
latest killing.
The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement.
Some observers have attributed previous deaths of rebel leaders in
Donetsk to infighting among the rebels, or moves by Moscow to eliminate
inconvenient separatist leaders.
What are the two sides saying?
Rebel and Russian news reports say the separatists' "finance minister"
Alexander Timofeyev was wounded in the blast at the Separ cafe that
killed Zakharchenko.
Ukrainians suspected of being behind the blast were arrested nearby, a
security source was quoted as saying.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said "there is
every reason to believe that the Kiev regime is behind the murder".
She said the Kiev "party of war" was "violating its pledges about peace
and has decided on a bloodbath".
However, recent reports suggested that Zakharchenko had fallen out of
favour with Russia.
A spokeswoman for Ukraine's state security service, Yelena Gitlyanskaya,
rejected Moscow's accusations.
She said the killing was a result of "internal fighting... between the
terrorists and their Russian sponsors".
What is happening in eastern Ukraine?
Heavily armed rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk regions refuse to recognise
the Ukrainian government in Kiev.
The rebels seized large swathes of territory there in an uprising in
April 2014. Since then, thousands of people have died in fighting
between the rebels and Ukrainian government forces.
Moscow denies sending regular troops and heavy weapons to the
separatists, but admits that Russian "volunteers" are helping the
rebels.
There has been shooting on the frontline despite a "back-to-school
truce" that was supposed to take effect on Wednesday. International
monitors reported 70 ceasefire violations on that day alone.
Who was Alexander Zakharchenko?
He played a key role in the Russian-backed separatist military operation
from its very beginning.
In early 2014, soon after Ukraine's pro-Russian government was toppled
by the Maidan revolution, he took part in the seizure of the Donetsk
regional administration building by people saying they were protesting
against the new pro-Western authorities.
Later that year, he was chosen as the prime minister of the
self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic by its parliament, the
"Supreme Council".
He had been in the role ever since, assuming the title of president, and
was among the signatories of the stalled Minsk peace agreement.
He was wounded twice in combat, and survived a car bomb blast in August
2014.
Expensive weapon systems for export is Trump administration official policy, his Military
Keyseanism stance.
Notable quotes:
"... The US is to render substantial military assistance to a country with an economy in the doldrums , reforms that have foundered , a democracy that is in question , and corruption that is widespread . ..."
...
Kurt Volker , US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, said in an interview
with the Guardian published on September 1 that "Washington is ready to expand arms supplies to
Ukraine in order to build up the country's naval and air defense forces in the face of
continuing Russian support for
eastern separatists ." According to him, the Trump administration was "absolutely" prepared
to go further in supplying lethal weaponry to Ukrainian forces than the anti-tank
missiles it delivered in April .
Mr. Volker explained that "[t]hey need to rebuild a navy and they have very limited air
capability as well. I think we'll have to look at air defense."
The diplomat
believes Ukraine needs unmanned aerial vehicles, counter-battery radar systems, and
anti-sniper systems. The issue of lethal arms purchases has been discussed at the highest
level.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 allocated
$250m in military assistance to Ukraine, including lethal arms. The
US has delivered Javelin anti-tank missile systems to Kiev but this time the
ambassador talked about an incomparably larger deal. Former President Barack
Obama had been unconvinced that granting Ukraine lethal defensive weapons
would be the right decision, in view of the widespread corruption there. This
policy has changed under President Trump, who - among other things - approved deliveries
of anti-tank missiles to Kiev last December.
Ukraine has officially requested US air-defense systems. According to
Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, the Ukrainian
military wants to purchase at least three air-defense systems. The cost of
the deal is expected to exceed $2 billion, or about $750 million apiece. The
system in question was not specified, but it's generally believed to be the
Patriot.
Volker's statement was made at a time of rising tensions in the Sea of Azov,
which is legally shared by Ukraine and Russia. It is connected to
the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait. The rhetoric has heated up and ships
have been placed under arrest as this territorial dispute turns the area
into a flashpoint.
Russia has
slammed the US for backing Ukraine's violations of international law in
the area. According to a 2003 treaty, the Sea of Azov is a jointly
controlled territory that both countries are allowed to use freely.
The US military already runs a maritime operations center located within
Ukraine's Ochakov naval base. The facility is an operational-level warfare
command-and-control organization that is designed to deliver flexible
maritime support throughout the full range of military operations. Hundreds
of US and Canadian military instructors are
training Ukrainian personnel at the Yavorov firing range.
NATO has
granted Ukraine the status of an aspirant
country - a step that is openly provocative toward Russia. Macedonia,
Georgia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are also aspirant nations. Last year,
Ukraine's parliament adopted
a resolution recognizing full membership in NATO as a foreign policy
goal. In 2008, NATO agreed that Ukraine along with Georgia should become a
full-fledged member. In March, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia announced the
formation of an alliance to oppose Russia.
"... Alberto Nisman and Argentina's History of Assassinations and Suspicious Suicides ..."
"... Whether the crusading prosecutor's death is found to be a suicide or homicide, many Argentines probably won't believe it. The past has taught them to always look for the sinister explanation. ..."
"... Decades after the military murdered thousands, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo warn that the current era of alternative facts poses a new threat ..."
"... They'll gain the world but lose their souls They'll gain the world but lose their souls ..."
"... Don't believe politicians and thieves They want our people on their bended knees Pirates and robbers, liars and thieves You come like the wolf but dressed like the sheep ..."
"... If you go to Lagos what you find, vampires If you go to Kinshasa what you find, vampires If you go to Darfur what you find, vampires If you go to Malabo what you find, vampires ..."
"... Lies and theft Guns and debt Life and death IMF ..."
"... When the bank man comes to your door Better know you'll always be poor Bank loans and policies They can't make our people free ..."
"... You live on the blood of my people Everyone knows you've come to steal You come like the thieves in the night The whole world is ready to fight ..."
SHARMINI PERIES: It's The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from
Baltimore.
For several months now. Argentines have been taking to the streets to protest against
neoliberal austerity measures of President Mauricio Macri. The most recent such protest took
place on July 9 on Argentine's Independence Day. There has also been three general strikes thus
far. In the two years since he took office, President Macri has laid off as many as 76,000
public sector workers, and slashed gas and water and electricity subsidies, leading to a
tenfold increase in prices, in some cases.
Now, the government argues that all of this is necessary in order to stem inflation, and the
decline of the currency's value. Last month, Macri received the backing of the International
Monetary Fund. The IMF agreed to provide Argentina with a $50 billion loan, one of the largest
in IMF history. In exchange, the Macri government will deepen the austerity measures already in
place.
Joining me now to analyze Argentina's economic situation and its new IMF loan is Michael
Hudson. Michael is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of
Missouri Kansas City. Welcome back, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Good to be back, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Michael, why is it that Argentina needs such a huge credit line from the
IMF?
MICHAEL HUDSON: For precisely the reason that you explained. The neoliberal policy has its
aim rolling back any of the wage increases in employment that Mrs. Kirschner, the former
president, implied, as part of the class war. So in order to shrink the economy, you have to
basically cut back business, cut back employment. And so the purpose of the IMF loan was to
enable the wealthy Argentinians, the oligarchy that's run the country for a century, to get all
its money out and run. So like almost all IMF loans, the purpose is to subsidize capital flight
out of Argentina so that the wealthy Argentinians can take their money and run before the
currency collapses.
The aim of the loan is to indebt Argentina so much that its currency will continue to go
down and down and down, essentially wrecking the economy. That's what the IMF does. That's its
business plan. It makes a loan to subsidize capital flight, emptying out the economy of cash,
leading the currency to collapse, as it is recently collapsed. As soon as the $50 billion was
expended, or wasted, in letting wealthy Argentinians take their pesos, convert them into
dollars, move them offshore to the United States, to England, to the Dutch West Indies, and
offshore banking centers. Then they let the currency collapse so that the IMF model, which it's
announced for the last 50 years, the model is if you can depreciate a currency what you're
really lowering is the price of labor. Because raw materials and capital have an international
price. But when a currency goes down it makes imports much more expensive, and that causes a
price umbrella over the cost of living; that labor has to pay the equivalent international
price for grain, for food, for oil and gas, for everything else.
And so what Macri has done is they agree with the IMF to wage class war with a vengeance,
devaluation, leaving Argentina so hopelessly indebted that it can't possibly repay the IMF
loan. So what we're seeing is a replay of what happened in 2001.
SHARMINI PERIES: Exactly. I was going to ask you, now, that was only 17 years ago, Michael.
Argentinians do have memory here. They know what happened. They experienced it as well. Now,
that was back in 2001 during the economic crisis when unemployment had increased so
dramatically. That country went through a series of presidents and went through a series of
crises. And we saw images of, you know, very similar to what we had seen in, in Greece not too
long ago. Now, tell us more about that history. What exactly happened during that crisis, and
then eventually how did Nestor Kirschner relieve the economy and come out of that crisis?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the IMF staff said, don't make the loan. There's no possible way
Argentina can pay the loan. It's all going to be made to the oligarchy for capital flight.
You're giving the IMF money for crooks, and you're expecting the Argentine people to have to
pay. So Argentina very quickly was left totally broke, as the IMF intended it to be. And so
although it was 17 years ago, for the last 17 years the IMF has had a slogan: No more
Argentinas. In other words, they said, we're never going to make the loan that is only given to
oligarchs for capital flight to steal. It's as if you make a loan to the Ukraine, or to the
Russian kleptocrats, or to the Greek banks to move offshore.
And yet here, here again, we're having a replay of what happened was, after Mrs. Kirschner
came in, it was obvious to the [inaudible] to everybody, as it had been to the IMF staff, many
of whom had resigned, that Argentina couldn't pay. So about 80 percent of Argentines'
bondholders agreed to write down the debt to something that could be paid. They said, OK, you
know, either it's a total default because they can't pay anything, or we'll write it down very
substantially to what could be paid. Because the IMF really made a completely incompetent- not
incompetent, directly corrupt insider deal. Well, unfortunately, the oligarchy had a fatal
clause put in the original bond issue, saying they would agree to U.S. arbitration and to U.S.
law if there was any dispute.
Well, after the old Argentine bonds depreciated in price, the bonds that were not
renegotiated as part of the 80 percent, you had vulture funds buy them out. Especially Paul
Singer, the Republican campaign donor who tends to buy politicians, along with foreign
government bonds. And sued, and said, we want 100 percent on the dollar, not, you know, the 40
cents on the dollar or whatever they'd settled. And the case went to a senile, dying judge,
Griesa in New York City, who said, well, there was something that's about a clause that said
investors have to be treated separately. And Argentina said, well, that's fine, we'll pay the
other 20 percent [inaudible] the 80 percent of all agreed to. The majority rules. And Griesa
said, no, no, you have to pay the 80 percent all the money that the 20 percent demands. That's
symmetry, because only if you let the hedge funds win can you go bankrupt again, wreck the
government, and bring in oligarchy.
And so that ruling caused absolute turmoil. The United States State Department set out to
support the oligarchy by doing everything it could to destabilize Argentina. And the Argentine
people said, well, we'd better vote in a government that's supported by the United States.
Maybe it will be nice to us. I don't know why foreign countries think that way, but they
thought maybe if they voted the neoliberal that the United States would agree to forgive some
of its debt. Well, that's not what neoliberals do. The neoliberal did just what you said at the
beginning of the program; announced that he was going to cut employment, lower, stop inflation
by making the working class bail, bear all of the costs, and would borrow- actually, it was the
largest loan in IMF history, the $50 billion to enable the Argentine wealthy class to move its
money offshore, leaving the economy a bankrupt shell. That's what the IMF does.
SHARMINI PERIES: Right. So let's imagine you are given the opportunity to resolve this
issue. How would you be advising the Argentine government in terms of what can they do to
stabilize the economy, given the circumstances they're facing right now?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Very simple. I'd say this debt is an odious debt. There is no way that
Argentina can pay. The clause that bankrupted us was put in as a result of tens of thousands of
professors, labor leaders, [land] people being assassinated. The United States financed an
assassination team throughout Latin America after Pinochet in Chile to have basically a proxy
government, and the Argentine loan that said we will, we will follow U.S. rules, not Argentine
rules, basically should disqualify that debt from having to be paid. And it should say the IMF
debt is an odious debt. It was given under fraudulent purposes solely for purposes of capital
flight. We will not pay.
SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Michael, just one last question. Did you want to add something to what
you were saying?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, once it doesn't pay the foreign debt, its balance of payments will be,
will be there. The problem is that the creditors have always used violence in order to get
their way. I don't see how the Argentina situation can be solved without violence, because the
creditors are using police force, covert assassination. They're just as bad as the dirty war
that had that mass assassination period in the late, into the early '90s. There's obviously
going to be not only the demonstrations that you showed, but an outright war, because it's
broken out in Argentina more drastically than anywhere else right now in Latin America, except
in Venezuela.
SHARMINI PERIES: Michael, at the moment, the Fed is gradually increasing interest rates and
the dollar is gaining in value. This is sucking the financial capital not only in Argentina but
in many places around the world. Also, you know, they're going to be soon in crisis as well.
What is, what can the developing economies do?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Here's the problem. When the United States raises interest rates, that
causes foreign money to flow, flow into the dollar, because the rest of the world, Europe and
other areas, are keeping low interest rates. So as money goes into the dollar, to take
advantage of the rising interest rates, the dollar rises. Now, that makes it necessary for
Argentina or any other country, third world country, to pay more and more pesos in order to buy
the dollars to pay that foreign debt. Because Argentina and third world countries have violated
the prime rule of credit. And that is never to denominate a debt in another currency that you
can't pay. And all of a sudden, the dollar debts become much more expensive in peso terms, and
as a result, all throughout the world right now you're having a collapse of bond prices of
third world debt. Argentine bonds, Chilean bonds, African bonds, near Eastern bonds. Third
world debt bonds are plunging, because the investors realize that the countries can't pay. The
game looks like it may be over.
The good side of this is that Argentina now can join with other third world countries and
say we are going to redenominate the debts in our own currency, or we just won't pay, or we
will do what the world did in 1931 and announce a moratorium on intergovernmental debts. Now,
that was done on German reparations and the World War I inter-ally debts. Something like that.
Some international conference to declare a moratorium and say, what is the amount that actually
can be paid? And to write down third world debts to the amount that should be paid.
Because the principle that countries have to say is that no country should be obliged to
sacrifice its own economy, its own employment, and its own independence to pay foreign
creditors. Every country has a right to put its own citizens first and its own economy first
before foreign creditors, especially when the loans are made under false pretenses, as the IMF
has made pretending to stabilize the currency instead of subsidizing capital flight to
destabilize the currency.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Michael. I thank you so much. And we'll continue this
conversation. There's so much more to discuss, and so many countries here in this situation for
that discussion as well. I thank you so much for joining us today.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Thanks. I think it's going to get worse, so we'll have a lot to discuss.
SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us here on The Real News Network.
Why does the IMF have a US dollar credit line at the US FED, and Argentina does not;
countries like Canada do, as do companies like Harley Davidson. Why the discrimination?
"The IMF was originally laid out as a part of the Bretton Woods system exchange agreement
in 1944. During the Great Depression, countries sharply raised barriers to trade in an
attempt to improve their failing economies. This led to the devaluation of national
currencies and a decline in world trade."
IMF is an anachronism, a perpetual organization seeking new reasons for its continued
existence.
And like all Western post WW II institutions, is part of the Cold War. Of course any
actions by US connected entities in Latin America/Caribbean are part of the Monroe Doctrine
;-(
Gas prices in Egypt have just been raised by 75% as part of the austerity measures
attached to the $12bn loan granted by the IMF. Regular folk barely have two pennies to rub
together and have been battered by this and other measures ostensibly designed to "lift the
economy and lure back investors (as per the IMF rationale behind these crushing loan
conditions). I wonder if the same sleight of hand outlined by Prof Hudson applies here (I.e.
whether this is an IMF subsidised capital flight scheme designed to aid the Egyptian
oligarchy in repatriating its loot) and whether we should cast a suspicious eye towards the
oligarchs in any country the IMF extends a loan to.
This puts me in mind of a blog that I came across sometime ago at http://ferfal.blogspot.com/ which has relevance here.
Yeah, he tries to flog a lot of survival gear and the like but this site came out of his
experiences in the first crash in Argentina in 2001. If you are prepared to dig deep into his
files you will find all sorts of stories about what life was like in Argentina and it was
awful and desperate. Probably the best place to start is at http://ferfal.blogspot.com/search/label/Argentine%20Collapse
From your link, this jumped out, as agnotological apologetics:
" Right now with President Mauricio Macri there's hope, but the change the country needs
will take decades "
He didn't make much of an effort to clarify, who holds this "hope" nor what "change the
country needs". OTOH Michael Hudson, in his last two interviews on NC, did. He (Feral) also
seems oblivious to the neoliberal projects role in Latin America, and in Argentina's 2001
crises.
And this:
"Anyway, that's what happened in Argentina and this is why in spite of the good president
we now have we need another 10 or 20 years for an entire generation of people to know
something other than populism and corruption as a way of life."
Again, oblivious to the neoliberal projects role in Latin America, and in Argentina's 2001
crises. Who benefits from austerity, and how?
"As soon as the $50 billion was expended, or wasted, in letting wealthy Argentinians take
their pesos, convert them into dollars, move them offshore to the United States, to England,
to the Dutch West Indies, and offshore banking centers"
Not sure I understand this. Who is converting the Oligarch pesos to dollars? Crooks in the
Argentine government?
As I understand it, it's the Oligarchs' butlers and footmen in the Argentine government
that do it. If the Argentine government has a policy of pegging the peso at some set number
of pesos per dollar, then the government is obliged to hand over this many dollars in
exchange for that many pesos. That's what a peg is. One way to get the dollars would be
through a loan which the IMF would "reluctantly" give them, conditional on a few crushing
social policies.
Like I said before, this so much resembles a leveraged buy-out.
Could someone please explain the mechanisms by which the $50B loan leaves the country.
Exactly how do the elites get their hands on this money and then get it out of the
country?
If you haven't already read it, check
Prof. Hudson's previous article . It describes more about the methods.
Of course, if you have, then I'm not helping.
They convert their liquid cash into Dollars.
Then wire it to Banks outside the Argentine, and invest, (typically buy property). In addition, they take out loans against their Argentinian assets or property,
and convert those pesos into dollars,
and export those dollars as well.
All legal and above board.
When the peso collapses, they repatriate some of their dollars, and pay of the now
deflated loans.
'The Argentine loan that said we will, we will follow U.S. rules, not Argentine rules,
basically should disqualify that debt from having to be paid.'
Most foreign currency bonds floated by developing economies specify New York or London
legal jurisdiction because of (1) well-developed case law; (2) creditors don't trust the
objectivity of courts in borrower countries.
If all developing country debt were considered "odious" merely because of New York or
English legal jurisdiction, lending to developing countries would stop cold.
'I don't see how the Argentina situation can be solved without violence, because the
creditors are using police force, covert assassination.'
Cite one -- just one -- link showing "covert assassination" occurring in Argentina. The
Dirty War of the 1970s and early 1980s doesn't count. You can't keep waving the bloody shirt
of military dictatorship in South America more than thirty years after it ended.
I'm sure there is a nice polite clear unassailable explanation for what happened in this
instance:
" Alberto Nisman and Argentina's History of Assassinations and Suspicious
Suicides
Whether the crusading prosecutor's death is found to be a suicide or homicide, many
Argentines probably won't believe it. The past has taught them to always look for the
sinister explanation. "
And maybe creditors like to have their loan docs choose US/NY courts and law as the basis
for dispute resolution because both are stacked in favor of creditors? Home court "white shoe
lawyer" advantage? No history of support for the great creditor scams of the past? the word
"jackal" has no meaning? There was no reason for that guy to write a sequel to "Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man"?
Really, there's no need for the "bloody shirt," now is there, given current right-wing
dictators supported by "us," what the Empire and Banksters and the rest are doing in and to
central and South America, now is there? But it's a great distraction, I'll grant, and might
even work as impeachment for some folks
"No country should be obliged to pay its bondholders if the price of paying means austerity,
unemployment, shrinking population, emigration, rising suicide rates, abolition of public
health standards, and selloffs of the public domain to monopolists."
These sorts of rules would put a dead stop to foreign loans.
Something always bothers me about the "bondholder" sanctity meme. Bonds are "investments,"
right? And there are RISKS associated with investments, right? And there's supposed to be a
"risk premium" built into the "price" of the bond, right?
At least Investopedia and other sources say so, basically that these are NOT God-sanctioned
absolute-right deals where the bondholder takes priority over everyone else in the world,
right? https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/bondrisks.asp
And bonds are sort of contracts, subject to the rules and defenses that apply in contract
disputes, albeit specialized rules, right? Impossibility and stuff? Fraud?
So why are the rest of us, like where "the government" is dumb or corrupt (CalPERS?)enough
to "obligate" the wealth and future of a country by "selling bonds" to "investors," as
security for "loans" that get siphoned off by corruption and stupidity, dumb enough to
usually just roll over and accept that we have to live like serfs to "pay off the bonds?"
Especially when the same scam has been pulled by the same set of Banksters over and over?
And yes, in the financialized westernized world, we mopes are tied to the "paying for
progress [some definition of same] by borrowing," aren't we?
Interesting that the hated Sharia Law, the banking and investment part of it, kind of
makes those allegedly risk-free kinds of fee- and profit- and reacketeer-generating "deals"
not only unlawful, but against the will of G_D? https://shariabanking.com/
How telling. Was only 7 years ago that the torture-murderer of mothers and nuns, the
Blonde Angel of Death himself, Alfredo Ignacio Astiz, was sentenced to life in prison. Per
Wikipedia:
Astiz, a specialist in the infiltration of human rights organizations, was implicated in
the December 1977 kidnapping of twelve human rights activists, including Azucena Villaflor
and two other founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and two French nationals,
Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, who were Catholic nuns. None of the twelve was seen
alive again outside detention and all were believed killed, rumored to be among the bodies
washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in late 1977.
To this day, torturers and murderers hold public offices. But I'm sure that's all in the
past. Anyone who still talks about the US-sponsored 16 years of Dirty War, from 1967-1983, is
a bloody shirt-waving fool, amirite Jim?
BUENOS
AIRES, Argentina (CNN) [2 March 1998] -- Argentina's "dirty war" ended 15 years ago,
but it is an ugly episode that cannot be buried and refuses to be silenced.
Aging mothers and grandmothers march each week as the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, carrying
banners and chanting, "We will not be stopped. We will not be broken. We have held on for
20 years."
They demand to know the whereabouts of sons and daughters and husbands and wives who
were detained by the ruling military junta between 1976 and 1983, and then disappeared.
The junta seized power in Argentina in March 1976 and began a systematic campaign to
wipe out left-wing terrorism. But the terror it spread exceeded anything the leftists ever
dreamed of, claiming the lives of dissidents as well as innocent civilians.
More than 9,000 people disappeared during the dirty war, and some human rights groups
say as many as 30,000 may have been tortured and killed.
"We only want to know where our sons and daughters are -- alive or dead," says one
woman. "We are anguished because we don't know whether they are sick or hungry or cold. We
don't know anything. We are desperate, desperate because we don't know who to turn to.
"Consulates, embassies, government ministries, churches. Every place is closed to us.
Everywhere they shut us out. We beg you to help us. We beg you."
Decades after the military murdered thousands, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo warn that
the current era of alternative facts poses a new threat
Torturers and murderers hold public office, thanks to an amnesty. But I'm sure no one
today, in the whole of Argentina, would ever consider what well, actually has long been
standard operating procedure in Argentina.
While not precisely on point, reminds me of a monologue to music titled "FMI", the
Portuguese abbreviation for IMF, by Portuguese poet Mario Branco. Salient lyrics (English
translation) of IMF:
"It's 'Monetary Internationalism' The IMF doesn't exist The IMF is a mask."
"There can't exist a reason for so much suffering."
Thievery Corporation were far more brutal in their Fela-Kuti-inspired "Vampires"
Lyrics (abridged):
They'll gain the world but lose their souls
They'll gain the world but lose their souls
Don't believe politicians and thieves
They want our people on their bended knees
Pirates and robbers, liars and thieves
You come like the wolf but dressed like the sheep
If you go to Lagos what you find, vampires
If you go to Kinshasa what you find, vampires
If you go to Darfur what you find, vampires
If you go to Malabo what you find, vampires
Lies and theft
Guns and debt
Life and death
IMF
When the bank man comes to your door
Better know you'll always be poor
Bank loans and policies
They can't make our people free
You live on the blood of my people
Everyone knows you've come to steal
You come like the thieves in the night
The whole world is ready to fight
The clause that bankrupted us was put in as a result of tens of thousands of professors,
labor leaders, [land] people being assassinated. The United States financed an
assassination team throughout Latin America after Pinochet in Chile to have basically a
proxy government, and the Argentine loan that said we will, we will follow U.S. rules, not
Argentine rules, basically should disqualify that debt from having to be paid. And it
should say the IMF debt is an odious debt. It was given under fraudulent purposes solely
for purposes of capital flight. We will not pay.
And this:
The problem is that the creditors have always used violence in order to get their
way.
Are why I so love Michael Hudson. There's the blood so studiously avoided in the
desanguinated language of "economics." Its absence is the tell-tale of the kind of
disembodiment described by Nancy Krieger
(h/t
Lambert ).
Embodiment, in other words, is literal. The
ecosocial premise is that clues to current and
changing population patterns of health, includ-
ing social disparities in health, are to be found
chiefly in the dynamic social, material, and
ecological contexts into which we are born,
develop, interact, and endeavour to live mean-
ingful lives. The contrast is to pervasive aetiolo-
gical hypotheses concerned mainly with
decontextualised and disembodied ''behaviours''
and ''exposures'' interacting with equally decon-
textualised and disembodied ''genes.'' The dis-
tinction is more than simply between
''determinants'' and ''mechanisms.'' Consider,
for example, contending -- and longstanding --
claims about racism compared with ''race'' as
causes of racial/ethnic disparities in health.
An embodied approach promotes testing hypoth-
eses to ascertain if the observed disparities are a
biological expression of racial discrimination,
past and present; by contrast, a disembodied
and decontextualised approach promulgates
research focused on detrimental genes and/or
''lifestyles.'' The vastly different implications
of these approaches for generating epidemiolo-
gical knowledge and informing policy underscore
the utility of clarifying the significance of
''embodiment'' for epidemiological inquiry.
[Footnotes omitted, emphasis added.]
Ah yes, but talking about our ideas about the problem, or talking about the talking about
the problem, is so much better for catapulting the propaganda.
Also, if it looks, walks, and bankrupts Argentina over and over exactly like an Economic
Hit Job aka mass murder and looting under the color of law by the Suits in broad g.d.
daylight, then yes. Yes it is.
In the '70s at the best universities Ecology Classes were instituted and the young well
off students were told first, that the climate was being altered as a result of human
activities.
Nixon was told by the CIA that overpopulation was the main treat to future US Security.
The Vatican quashed that way of looking at it. Gopsay policies are all the same as Vatican
policies.
Loyalty to the nation of their birth for a rich person & their wealthy families was
thrown out the window.
The jetsetter class now buys the best deal far as taxes and protections.
Their goal is to eliminate any harm to them or their families from "Forces beyond their
control." If the leaders of the world are going to co-operate with them, those leaders will
be paid. For the majority who are born to labor and become labor those things done by bankers
and their leaders become for them "Forces beyond their control."
The rich know that overpopulation is already the fact at 7.5 billion. They will bond
together on the tarmacs hanging around their jets for little talks as took place between Bill
Clinton and Lauretta Lynch.
"All those people that don't like how we get rich, who are taking up space we want, well, let
them starve. The science says there are too many of them anyway."
(Wasn't a discussion of how to engineer revolts wonderful to crush, but is used as
illustrative of how jet setters get around to meetings that lead to this or that policy of
the day.)
This is the essence of "Scientific Socialism". Current Trump Administration policies will
cause the withdrawal of US lands devoted to agriculture. What was for Stalin destruction of
the Kulaks and collectivization starvation of Armenians, or Peasants, or the Intellogemtsia,
or all those ambivalent about who is in power and are therefore Counter-Revolutionaries,
starving them all leaves only the ignorant, cowed, or lucky alive.
Creating the conditions for civil wars is a great thing for the banks and their loyal
patrons, the war materiel`s industries. The people rebel and oligarchs at the top have them
killed.
Trotsky made the point that the weapons in the arsenals are the peoples. Somehow soldiers
and police in nation after nation don't see it that way. In the US the police are made
soldiers in the drug war. Keeping the peace is not their primary job. No pot smoking
peaceniks are to be hired so the ranks are securely filled by thugs and incompetents made
special by law. They shoot Black people at the drop of a hat. They shoot the poor driven
crazy pretty often as well.
Somebody wondered why in the US Blues & Reds or Democrats, the Leftists silo and don't
talk civilly to each other. Trump supporters show and shoot guns or as in Charlottesville
Virginia run as many people as possible over and are obviously willing to kill other
Americans. In Weimar Germany the "Scientific Socialists" had their uniformed enforcers.
Dictators have their own organizations exultant at the opportunity to be rewarded for
beating and killing the people who object to the destruction of civilization. Spectaculars in
stadiums, like Trump's to come Military Parade become more common as if such is civilization
when it is more indicative of a break down of civilization itself.
I have no means to remove myself and my wife from the roiling clouds of more murder in the
streets. I'll be "collapsing in place" as described by Lambert Strether. These things and the
ideologies behind them happening are not accidental of "Forces Beyond My Control".
The true purposes of the IMF loan are questionable to me.
1.) Over the past few years, we have seen market rigging by large transnational banks in
both the LIBOR and foreign exchange markets. This raises the question of whether there was
covert market manipulation to rapidly drop the Argentine peso and coerce the Argentine
government to borrow funds from the IMF to defend the peso in order to assure that nation was
able to pay for necessary imports?
2.) Was this debt undertaken to facilitate capital flight for a small, wealthy segment of
the Argentine population without the consent of or benefit to the people of Argentina, or for
some other unstated reason?
If either of these is true, this debt can legitimately be considered as "odious debt" by
the people of Argentina and potentially repudiated.
It also appears to me that there is a high probability that the austerity measures likely
to be imposed under this $50 billion loan to Argentina by the IMF could violate the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Not an attorney, nor knowledgeable about international law. Just my opinion as an ordinary
citizen based on my reading of the post and Wikipedia.
"... Washington – does not give a fuck about the economic well-being of Ukrainians, does not have even the brotherly connection
of being of the same ethnic group, and for so long as Ukraine is willing to suffer being poor in silence, for that long it will not
be a problem for its new 'partners'. ..."
A few are beginning to wake up to the reality that snatching Ukraine away from Russia was never about prosperity and security
for its people, and all about destabilizing what the west perceived as the quickening of an unwelcome regional influence, and
curbing it. The EU – and its string-puller, Washington – does not give a fuck about the economic well-being of Ukrainians,
does not have even the brotherly connection of being of the same ethnic group, and for so long as Ukraine is willing to suffer
being poor in silence, for that long it will not be a problem for its new 'partners'.
Nationalist Nazi nutjobs are always proposing the border be sealed ever-tighter, if it were feasible to build a stainless-steel
wall between Ukraine and Russia which reached to low earth orbit, they would vote for it. But the Great Wall Of Yatsenyuk never
materialized, he's enjoying his Florida condo, and there is no practical way to limit commerce between the two countries while
the people are increasingly motivated toward its continuing.
Ukraine is on the edge of collapse, and I don't think any force on earth can prevent its sliding over the edge. The west is
not going to pony up the $170 Billion or so it would take to rescue it; if it did so, Porky and his minions would steal most of
it for themselves, and Russia is unlikely to ever permit again the degree of fraternal closeness that existed between the two
countries, since it is clear it would take only another western intervention to render it once again an untrustworthy spoiler.
Once Nord Stream II is built, Ukraine will have lost its leverage and will be of no further significant value to the western purveyors
of destabilization.
More such core realization is necessary to prevent Ukraine from officially blaming its collapse on anyone but itself. The government
will try that course, naturally, and you don't need to be able to see very far into the future to know that it is Russia who will
be blamed, despite plenty of empirical evidence that Russian investors and Ukrainian refugees working in Russia were all that
kept it alive before the end. But in order that Ukrainians know in their heart of hearts that their government stepped on its
own dick over and over, and that they passively failed to correct it, there needs to be more such public confession. I can show
you plenty of analysis, in English, published before things went pear-shaped in the dying moments of 2013, which proposed that
severing trade relationships with Russia as the nationalists insisted would cost Ukraine just about exactly what the Rada now
says will happen, years too late. But they got one thing right – Ukraine and Russia cannot be brothers, not even friends, for
so long as Ukraine harbours that nutty nationalist element.
Give western Ukraine to Poland, and encourage all the nationalists
to go to the new paradise, and ensure that happens. They can bore the Poles with their raptures about Kievan Rus. Then maybe some
relationship could be salvaged.
This war is tremendous waste of resources on both sides with no clear
victory in sight. Killing of individual commanders does not change the
strategic situation. It just invites retaliation.
Although the war did increase the coherence of the Ukrainian society
(like any war does) the price is way too high.
Zakharchenko was a soldier and knew the risks, many others are ready to take his
place.
VV Putin could have occupied the whole so-called ukraine in the same manner he occupied
Crimea, even better, he could've sent volunteers to shoot CIA and Mossad agents during the
maidan events.Lots of volunteers.
He didnt.
Please consider that ukraine project is an infinite black hole sucking money and resources
(agents, weapons, influence) from the Hegemon, at the same time bringing him absolutely
nothing.
Especially the Debaltsevo cauldron was painful, as lots of modern artillery control gear
was lost in pristine state and sent directly to Moscow.Without considering the humiliation of
German and Canadian mercenaries being caught and released for indeterminate price.
In exchange the Hegemon learned that Russian artillery is still as dangerous as in '45, at
Saur Mogila whole battalions of Ukrainian army disappeared literally in minutes when caught
by Buratino fire.
Perhaps some remember the shellshocked Ukrainian infantry lieutenant, when interviewed by
CNN freshly out of Ilovaisk, screaming into the mic that *two meters, you must dig two
meters, or you die!* , well-intentioned American female reporter decidedly confused.
The show will go on until Hegemon decides that he had enough, and gives green light to the
ukrainian army to coup the govt, exterminate the nazi battalions, and begin a very slow and
painful ascension back into a semblance of normality first, then re-unification with the
Motherland next.
As usual, the most vulnerable, old people, women, workers will suffer the most, and the
guilty will go unpunished.
" it is under $500 million and is likely mostly money from Ukrainians working in
Russia. I do not see any corporate level investment happening in the current climate.
"
The above linked RBK article goes on to read:
According to the presented data, during the period from January to June, the Ukraine
received $1,259 billion, of which $436 million came from Russia. In second place was Cyprus,
which invested $219 million and in third place amongst the largest investors was the
Netherlands ($207.7 million).
In addition, contributions were made to the Ukraine economy by Austria ($58.7 million),
Poland ($54.1), France ($46.9) and the UK ($43.4).
The report says that almost 60% of these funds ($750 million) were invested in the
financial and insurance sphere; 9.6% of of the funds were invested by the Ukrainian
authorities into the wholesale and retail trade; 8.2% into industry and 7.9 per cent. into
information and telecommunications.
In mid-August, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that Russia had been
the main trading partner of the Ukraine since 2014 and because of this the return of the
Crimea and the resolution of the conflict in the Donbass were becoming impossible. "There is
no plan for victory in this state. Because you are not behaving like people who want a
victory. You are already slaves", he said.
In response to Yushchenko's statement, the ex-head of the Ukrainian Ministry of the
Economy, Viktor Suslov, said that the words of the former Ukrainian leader were "absurd" and
considered any damage to Kiev caused by breaking off trade with Russia as being
"colossal".
Doesn't sound like all of this money sloely consists of that sent off to "Independent"
Ukraine by economic migrants from that country who are eking out a living in the Evil
Empire.
Verkhovna Rada Deputy Vadym Rabinovich on air of TV channel "112 Ukraine" said that the
termination of trade with Russia will destroy Ukrainian economy.
According to him, Russia remains the largest trading partner of the Ukraine, as trade
turnover between the two countries is growing every month.
"The trade balance with Russia is growing every month for one simple reason: the free
economic zone with Europe has brought us only losses", said Rabinovich.
He noted that the interruption of trade between Moscow and Kiev is fraught with the
loss, of "approximately one third of the gross national product".
"With all of the stupidity that you have done in the country, then with another
unbalanced step you'll destroy the economy", summed up the Rada deputy.
Earlier, former head of the Main Department of the Ukrainian security Service, Vasily
Vovk, proposed that the border with Russia be completely blocked and that ties with her be
cut.
A few are beginning to wake up to the reality that snatching Ukraine away from Russia was
never about prosperity and security for its people, and all about destabilizing what the west
perceived as the quickening of an unwelcome regional influence, and curbing it. The EU
– and its string-puller, Washington – does not give a fuck about the economic
well-being of Ukrainians, does not have even the brotherly connection of being of the same
ethnic group, and for so long as Ukraine is willing to suffer being poor in silence, for that
long it will not be a problem for its new 'partners'.
Nationalist Nazi nutjobs are always proposing the border be sealed ever-tighter, if it
were feasible to build a stainless-steel wall between Ukraine and Russia which reached to low
earth orbit, they would vote for it. But the Great Wall Of Yatsenyuk never materialized, he's
enjoying his Florida condo, and there is no practical way to limit commerce between the two
countries while the people are increasingly motivated toward its continuing.
Ukraine is on the edge of collapse, and I don't think any force on earth can prevent its
sliding over the edge. The west is not going to pony up the $170 Billion or so it would take
to rescue it; if it did so, Porky and his minions would steal most of it for themselves, and
Russia is unlikely to ever permit again the degree of fraternal closeness that existed
between the two countries, since it is clear it would take only another western intervention
to render it once again an untrustworthy spoiler. Once Nord Stream II is built, Ukraine will
have lost its leverage and will be of no further significant value to the western purveyors
of destabilization.
More such core realization is necessary to prevent Ukraine from officially blaming its
collapse on anyone but itself. The government will try that course, naturally, and you don't
need to be able to see very far into the future to know that it is Russia who will be blamed,
despite plenty of empirical evidence that Russian investors and Ukrainian refugees working in
Russia were all that kept it alive before the end. But in order that Ukrainians know in their
heart of hearts that their government stepped on its own dick over and over, and that they
passively failed to correct it, there needs to be more such public confession. I can show you
plenty of analysis, in English, published before things went pear-shaped in the dying moments
of 2013, which proposed that severing trade relationships with Russia as the nationalists
insisted would cost Ukraine just about exactly what the Rada now says will happen, years too
late. But they got one thing right – Ukraine and Russia cannot be brothers, not even
friends, for so long as Ukraine harbours that nutty nationalist element. Give western Ukraine
to Poland, and encourage all the nationalists to go to the new paradise, and ensure that
happens. They can bore the Poles with their raptures about Kievan Rus. Then maybe some
relationship could be salvaged.
In the alt-right/far left scenario, we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of
Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)
as being simply irrelevant. Or, worse backed by shadowy Western forces.
Or how about we wish these East European countries well but we choose not to take their
side in whatever feud they have going with Russia? Maybe the people who "love the US" love
the worst aspects of America? Maybe a lot of them come across as greasy little hustlers on
the make? Ever think of that?
Anyone who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes, especially
in Western Ukraine.
And that's precisely why countries like Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland shouldn't be
in NATO. We should never have included countries with deep resentments against, and hazy
borders with Russia. The geniuses running the West should have encouraged the creation of a
lots of neutral states -- like Finland and Austria -- rather than expand NATO eastward.
who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes
I don't know where is Ukraine you spent your time and in what company, but this is
complete BS. The South-Eastern Ukraine hates the Western Ukrainian "banderovtsi" as much as
the Russians do if not more -- after all, the followers of Bandera operated mostly on the
Ukrainian soil. There are deranged individuals in every country, of course, and Ukraine has
been subjected lately to intense hate propaganda as well as repressions, but there is no
hatred of Russia. This is contradicted by both sociology and everyday behavior of Ukrainian,
which move to Russia in droves, spend time in Russia, support Russian sport teams, etc.
we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians
and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)
Nobody is asking about what the real Ukrainians, Estonians, Georgians or even Poles
actually think, least of all the US. There are almost as many Georgians living in Russia as
there are in Georgia, and they show no desire to move back. In 2008 during the conflict,
their biggest fear was that they'd be deported.
The Ukraine's Maidan was a violent coup, where a few thousand militants armed and trained
abroad overthrew a government elected by the entire country. Protests that immediately
started all over the country were suppressed with force -- the one in Donbass still is.
How could anyone with an access to Internet remain unaware of these facts is beyond
me.
That's an interesting point. Even if true, doesn't matter. One could wonder ..who are the
people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces? Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces,
presently engaged against Donbass? All of them. Including those is logistics/maintenance
depots far away from the (current) line of separation?
The will to fight against "Russia" ranges from a deep hate to simply not wishing to go
against the (current) Ukrainian government. The former are in those "shock" battalions. The
later are manning the logistics train. And everything in between.
Now .if/when a real shooting starts, as soon as Russia, as expected (and desired) by the
most of readers here, starts delivering ordnance into operational depth of Donbass enemy, the
ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.
Why should anyone freaking care and put his ass in the line of fire because you bunch of
primitives hate Russia? Between having a nuclear cataclysm because you pathetic dwarfs of
nations are frustrated to have a neighbour you can't bully and Russia obliterating you, I say
let Russia obliterate you, thus we won't have to suffer the ear-hurting dissonnance of your
incessant whining any more. Though I doubt Russia would stomp on you. When you see shit, you
don't stomp on it, you don't want you don't want your shoes to stink, you just walk around
it.
Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass?
Besides those in "volunteer battalions", which tend to be nationalistic with distinct Nazi
overtones, people in the regular Armed Forces are there for the money. There are very few
paying jobs in today's Ukraine, so men enlist and hope for the best.
the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I
suspect.
That could've been the case in 2014. Today I very much doubt it. Even the Right Sector
people are fed up with the current power in Kiev, and even the dumbest nationalists are
beginning to realize what a deep hole the country is in. Normal people all over the
South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come. The problem is the Russians
aren't coming.
This is Ukrainian future, unless the government neoliberal policies
change...
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that Brussels euroclowns celebrated in triumph the exit of Greece from the memorandum agreement, should be taken only as a huge farce. ..."
"... Greece entered the bailout program with national debt at 120% of GDP. Now, the debt remains close to 180% of GDP! Unemployment remains at record levels. Public property has been sold-off for pennies to foreign 'investors'. Labor rights almost vanished, the situation resembles the Middle Ages. Social state and benefits severely damaged. This is the Troika 'success story'. ..."
"... This contradiction could be explained by the fact that the neoliberal regime apparatus wants to send a warning sign to Tsipras administration not to take any action without permission. It is more than certain that the tight scrutiny will be continued and Tsipras must prove to the Western neocolonialists that he will not even think to implement any anti-austerity policies. ..."
"... Without a bailout program, Greece will be left alone now to swim with the bloodthirsty sharks of the global financial mafia in the wild sea of the supposedly 'free markets'. ..."
"... Either way, the debt colony will deliver to the predators every single asset that has been left untouched. ..."
The fact that Brussels euroclowns celebrated in triumph the exit of Greece
from the memorandum agreement, should be taken only as a huge farce.
The Troika (ECB, European Commission, IMF) bailout program has officially
ended and the result is a scenery of disaster. If you still believe that this
program has been implemented to save the Greek economy and not the
Franco-German banks , take a look at the situation today.
Greece entered the bailout program with national debt at 120% of GDP. Now,
the debt remains close to 180% of GDP! Unemployment remains at record levels.
Public property has been sold-off for pennies to foreign 'investors'. Labor
rights almost vanished, the situation resembles the Middle Ages. Social state
and benefits severely damaged. This is the Troika 'success story'.
So, in reality, the experiment was indeed successful for the goals of the
international capitalist predators who transformed the country into a debt colony.
For more than eight years, they boiled the frog slowly with the help of Troika,
and now it's impossible to escape from the hot water.
While the clowns in Brussels had to present a 'success story' to cover their
huge failure and slow down the centrifugal forces against eurozone's existence
and unity, the mainstream media didn't exactly celebrate. Most of the headlines
were quite moderate and even alarming for the future of the Greek economy.
This contradiction could be explained by the fact that the neoliberal regime
apparatus wants to send a warning sign to Tsipras administration not to take
any action without permission. It is more than certain that the tight scrutiny
will be continued and Tsipras must prove to the Western neocolonialists that
he will not even think to implement any anti-austerity policies.
It is worth to mention that most of the neutral/pessimistic headlines came
from the Anglo-American mainstream media. This could be also considered another
indication about the level of deterioration in the relations between the Anglo-American
axis and the Brussels-Berlin axis, inside the Western camp.
Greece will have to give much more to the Western neoliberal predators. Otherwise,
the rating agencies will be ordered to attack again and force the ruined Greek
economy into another round of disastrous bailouts.
Either way, the debt colony will deliver to the predators every single asset
that has been left untouched.
"... This financial dynamic has hijacked industrial capitalism. It is leading economies to polarize and ultimately collapse under the weight of their debt burden. That is the inherent dynamic of finance capitalism. The debt overhead leads to a financial crisis that becomes an opportunity to impose emergency rule to replace democratic lawmaking. So contrary to Hayek's anti-government "free enterprise" warnings, "slippery slope" to totalitarianism is not by socialist reforms limiting the rentier class's extraction of economic rent and interest, but just the opposite: the failure of society to check the rentier extraction of income vesting a hereditary autocracy whose financial and rent-seeking business plan impoverishes the economy at large. ..."
Text of Michael Hudson's speech on debt and the world economy, presented at Peking
University's School of Marxist Studies, May 5-6, 2018.
Volumes II and III of Marx's Capital describe how debt grows exponentially, burdening the
economy with carrying charges. This overhead is subjecting today's Western finance-capitalist
economies to austerity, shrinking living standards and capital investment while increasing
their cost of living and doing business. That is the main reason why they are losing their
export markets and becoming de-industrialized.
What policies are best suited for China to avoid this neo-rentier disease while raising
living standards in a fair and efficient low-cost economy? The most pressing policy challenge
is to keep down the cost of housing. Rising housing prices mean larger and larger debts
extracting interest out of the economy. The strongest way to prevent this is to tax away the
rise in land prices, collecting the rental value for the government instead of letting it be
pledged to the banks as mortgage interest.
The same logic applies to public collection of natural resource and monopoly rents. Failure
to tax them away will enable banks to create debt against these rents, building financial and
other rentier charges into the pricing of basic needs.
U.S. and European business schools are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They
teach the tactics of asset stripping and how to replace industrial engineering with financial
engineering, as if financialization creates wealth faster than the debt burden. Having rapidly
pulled ahead over the past three decades, China must remain free of rentier ideology that
imagines wealth to be created by debt-leveraged inflation of real-estate and financial asset
prices.
Western capitalism has not turned out the way that Marx expected. He was optimistic in
forecasting that industrial capitalists would gain control of government to free economies from
unnecessary costs of production in the form of rent and interest that increase the cost of
living (and hence, the break-even wage level). Along with most other economists of his day, he
expected rentier income and the ownership of land, natural resources and banking to be taken
out of the hands of the hereditary aristocracies that had held them since Europe's feudal
epoch. Socialism was seen as the logical extension of classical political economy, whose main
policy was to abolish rent paid to landlords and interest paid to banks and bondholders.
A century ago there was an almost universal belief in mixed economies. Governments were
expected to tax away land rent and natural resource rent, regulate monopolies to bring prices
in line with actual cost value, and create basic infrastructure with money created by their own
treasury or central bank. Socializing land rent was the core of Physiocracy and the economics
of Adam Smith, whose logic was refined by Alfred Marshall, Simon Patten and other bourgeois
economists of the late 19th century. That was the path that European and American capitalism
seemed to be following in the decades leading up to World War I. That logic sought to use the
government to support industry instead of the landlord and financial classes.
China is progressing along this "mixed economy" road to socialism, but Western economies are
suffering from a resurgence of the pre-capitalist rentier classes. Their slogan of "small
government" means a shift in planning to finance, real estate and monopolies. This economic
philosophy is reversing the logic of industrial capitalism, replacing public investment and
subsidy with privatization and rent extraction. The Western economies' tax shift favoring
finance and real estate is a case in point. It reverses John Stuart Mill's "Ricardian
socialism" based on public collection of the land's rental value and the "unearned increment"
of rising land prices.
Defining economic rent as the unnecessary margin of prices over intrinsic cost value,
classical economists through Marx described rentiers as being economically parasitic, not
productive. Rentiers do not "earn" their land rent, interest or monopoly rent, because it has
no basis in real cost-value (ultimately reducible to labor costs). The political, fiscal and
regulatory reforms that followed from this value and rent theory were an important factor
leading to Marx's value theory and historical materialism. The political thrust of this theory
explains why it is no longer being taught.
By the late 19th century the rentiers fought back, sponsoring reaction against the socialist
implications of classical value and rent theory. In America, John Bates Clark denied that
economic rent was unearned. He redefined it as payment for the landlords' labor and enterprise,
not as accruing "in their sleep," as J. S. Mill had characterized it. Interest was depicted as
payment for the "service" of lending productively, not as exploitation. Everyone's income and
wealth was held to represent payment for their contribution to production. The thrust of this
approach was epitomized by Milton Friedman's Chicago School claim that "there is no such thing
as a free lunch" – in contrast to classical economics saying that feudalism's legacy of
privatized land ownership, bank credit and monopolies was all about how to get a free lunch, by
exploitation.
The other major reaction against classical and Marxist theory was English and Austrian
"utility" theory. Focusing on consumer psychology instead of production costs, it claimed that
there is no difference between value and price. A price is whatever consumers "choose" to pay
for commodities, based on the "utility" that these provide – defined by circular
reasoning as being equal to the price they pay. Producers are assumed to invest and produce
goods to "satisfy consumer demand," as if consumers are the driving force of economies, not
capitalists, property owners or financial managers.
Using junk-psychology, interest was portrayed as what bankers or bondholders "abstain" from
consuming, lending their self-denial of spending to "impatient" consumers and "credit-worthy"
entrepreneurs. This view opposed the idea of interest as a predatory charge levied by
hereditary wealth and the privatized monopoly right to create bank credit. Marx quipped that in
this view, the Rothschilds must be Europe's most self-depriving and abstaining family, not as
suffering from wealth-addiction.
These theories that all income is earned and that consumers (the bourgeois term for
wage-earners) instead of capitalists determine economic policy were a reaction against the
classical value and rent theory that paved the way for Marx's analysis. After analyzing
industrial business cycles in terms of under-consumption or over-production in Volume I of
Capital, Volume III dealt with the precapitalist financial problem inherited from feudalism and
the earlier "ancient" mode of production: the tendency of an economy's debts to grow by the
"purely mathematical law" of compound interest.
Any rate of interest may be thought of as a doubling time. What doubles is not real growth,
but the parasitic financial burden on this growth. The more the debt burden grows, the less
income is left for spending on goods and services. More than any of his contemporaries, Marx
emphasized the tendency for debt to grow exponentially, at compound interest, extracting more
and more income from the economy at large as debts double and redouble, beyond the ability of
debtors to pay. This slows investment in new means of production, because it shrinks domestic
markets for output.
Marx explained that the credit system is external to the means of production. It existed in
ancient times, feudal Europe, and has survived industrial capitalism to exist even in socialist
economies. At issue in all these economic systems is how to prevent the growth of debt and its
interest charge from shrinking economies. Marx believed that the natural thrust of industrial
capitalism was to replace private banking and money creation with public money and credit. He
distinguished interest-bearing debt under industrial capitalism as, for the first time, a means
of financing capital investment. It thus was potentially productive by funding capital to
produce a profit that was sufficient to pay off the debt.
Industrial banking was expected to finance industrial capital formation, as was occurring in
Germany in Marx's day. Marx's examples of industrial balance sheets accordingly assumed debt.
In contrast to Ricardo's analysis of capitalism's Armageddon resulting from rising land-rent,
Marx expected capitalism to free itself from political dominance by the landlord class, as well
as from the precapitalist legacy of usury.
This kind of classical free market viewed capitalism's historical role as being to free the
economy from the overhead of unproductive "usury" debt, along with the problem of absentee
landownership and private ownership of monopolies – what Lenin called the economy's
"commanding heights" in the form of basic infrastructure. Governments would make industries
competitive by providing basic needs freely or at least at much lower public prices than
privatized economies could match.
This reform program of industrial capitalism was beginning to occur in Germany and the
United States, but Marx recognized that such evolution would not be smooth and automatic.
Managing economies in the interest of the wage earners who formed the majority of the
population would require revolution where reactionary interests fought to prevent society from
going beyond the "bourgeois socialism" that stopped short of nationalizing the land, monopolies
and banking.
World War I untracked even this path of "bourgeois socialism." Rentier forces fought to
prevent reform, and banks focused on lending against collateral already in place, not on
financing new means of production. The result of this return to pre-industrial bank credit is
that some 80 percent of bank lending in the United States and Britain now takes the form of
real estate mortgages. The effect is to turn the land's rental yield into interest.
That rent-into-interest transformation gives bankers a strong motive to oppose taxing land
rent, knowing that they will end up with whatever the tax collector relinquishes. Most of the
remaining bank lending is concentrated in loans for corporate takeovers, mergers and
acquisitions, and consumer loans. Corporate capital investment in today's West is not financed
by bank credit, but almost entirely out of retained corporate earnings, and secondarily out of
stock issues.
The stock market itself has become extractive. Corporate earnings are used for stock
buybacks and higher dividend payouts, not for new tangible investment. This financial strategy
was made explicit by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Jensen, who advocated that
salaries and bonuses for corporate managers should be based on how much they can increase the
price of their companies' stock, not on how much they increased or production and/or business
size. Some 92 percent of corporate profits in recent years have been spent on stock buyback
programs and dividend payouts. That leaves only about 8 percent available to be re-invested in
new means of production and hiring. Corporate America's financial managers are turning
financialized companies into debt-ridden corporate shells.
A major advantage of a government as chief banker and credit creator is that when debts come
to outstrip the means to pay, the government can write down the debt. That is how China's banks
have operated. It is a prerequisite for saving companies from bankruptcy and preventing their
ownership from being transferred to foreigners, raiders or vultures.
Classical tax and banking policies were expected to streamline industrial economies,
lowering their cost structures as governments replaced landlords as owner of the land and
natural resources (as in China today) and creating their own money and credit. But despite
Marx's understanding that this would have been the most logical way for industrial capitalism
to evolve, finance capitalism has failed to fund capital formation. Finance capitalism has
hijacked industrial capitalism, and neoliberalism is its anti-classical ideology.
The result of today's alliance of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector with
natural resource and infrastructure monopolies has been to reverse that the 20th century's
reforms promoting progressive taxation of wealth and income. Industrial capitalism in the West
has been detoured along the road to rent-extracting privatization, austerity and debt
serfdom.
The result is a double-crisis: austerity stemming from debt deflation, while public health,
communications, information technology, transportation and other basic infrastructure are
privatized by corporate monopolies that raise prices charged to labor and industry. The debt
crisis spans government debt (state and local as well as national), corporate debt, real estate
mortgage debt and personal debt, causing austerity that shrinks the "real" economy as its
assets and income are stripped away to service the exponentially growing debt overhead. The
economy polarizes as income and wealth ownership are shifted to the neo-rentier alliance headed
by the financial sector.
This veritable counter-revolution has inverted the classical concept of free markets.
Instead of advocating a public role to lower the cost structure of business and labor, the
neoliberal ideal excludes public infrastructure and government ownership of natural monopolies,
not to speak of industrial production. Led by bank lobbyists, neoliberalism even opposes public
regulation of finance and monopolies to keep their prices in line with socially necessary cost
of production.
To defend this economic counter-revolution, the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA)
and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures now used throughout the world were inspired by
opposition to progressive taxation and public ownership of land and banks. These statistical
measures depicting finance, insurance and real estate as the leaders of wealth creation, not
the creators merely of debt and rentier overhead.
What is China's "Real" GDP and "real wealth creation"?
Rejection of classical value theory's focus on economic rent – the excess of market
price over intrinsic labor cost – underlies the post-classical concept of GDP. Classical
rent theory warned against the FIRE sector siphoning off nominal growth in wealth and income.
The economics of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, J.S. Mill and Marx share in common the view that
this rentier revenue should be treated as an overhead charge and, as such, subtracted from
national income and product because it is not production-related. Being extraneous to the
production process, this rentier overhead is responsible for today's debt deflation and
economically extractive privatization that is imposing austerity and shrinking markets from
North America to Europe.
The West's debt crisis is aggravated by privatizing monopolies (on credit) that historically
have belonged to the public sector. Instead of recognizing the virtues of a mixed economy,
Frederick Hayek and his followers from Ayn Rand to Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the
Chicago School and libertarian Republicans have claimed that any public ownership or regulation
is, ipso facto, a step toward totalitarian politics.
Following this ideology, Alan Greenspan aborted economic regulation and decriminalized
financial fraud. He believed that in principle, the massive bank fraud, junk-mortgage lending
and corporate raiding that led up to the 2008 crisis was more efficient than regulating such
activities or prosecuting fraudsters.
This is the neoliberal ideology taught in U.S. and European business schools. It assumes
that whatever increases financial wealth most quickly is the most efficient for society as a
whole. It also assumes that bankers will find honest dealing to be more in their economic
self-interest than fraud, because customers would shun fraudulent bankers. But along with the
mathematics of compound interest, the inherent dynamic of finance capitalism is to establish a
monopoly and capture government regulatory agencies, the justice system, central bank and
Treasury to prevent any alternative policy and the prosecution of fraud.
The aim is to get rich by purely financial means – by increasing stock-market prices,
not by tangible capital formation. That is the opposite of the industrial logic of expanding
the economy and its markets. Instead of creating a more productive economy and raising living
standards, finance capitalism is imposing austerity by diverting wage income and also corporate
income to pay rising debt service, health insurance and payments to privatized monopolies.
Progressive income and wealth taxation has been reversed, siphoning off wages to subsidize
privatization by the rentier class.
This combination of debt overgrowth and regressive fiscal policy has produced two results.
First, combining debt deflation with fiscal deflation leaves only about a third of wage income
available to be spent on the products of labor. Paying interest, rents and taxes – and
monopoly prices – shrinks the domestic market for goods and services.
Second, adding debt service, monopoly prices and a tax shift to the cost of living and doing
business renders neo-rentier economies high-cost. That is why the U.S. economy has been
deindustrialized and its Midwest turned into a Rust Belt.
How Marx's economic schema explains the West's neo-rentier problem
In Volume I of Capital, Marx described the dynamics and "law of motion" of industrial
capitalism and its periodic crises. The basic internal contradiction that capitalism has to
solve is the inability of wage earners to be paid enough to buy the commodities they produce.
This has been called overproduction or underconsumption, but Marx believed that the problem was
in principle only temporary, not permanent.
Volumes II and III of Marx's Capital described a pre-capitalist form of crisis, independent
of the industrial economy: Debt grows exponentially, burdening the economy and finally bringing
its expansion to an end with a financial crash. That descent into bankruptcy, foreclosure and
the transfer of property from debtors to creditors is the dynamic of Western finance
capitalism. Subjecting economies to austerity, economic shrinkage, emigration, shorter life
spans and hence depopulation, it is at the root of the 2008 debt legacy and the fate of the
Baltic states, Ireland, Greece and the rest of southern Europe, as it was earlier the financial
dynamic of Third World countries in the 1960s through 1990s under IMF austerity programs. When
public policy is turned over to creditors, they use their power for is asset stripping,
insisting that all debts must be paid without regard for how this destroys the economy at
large.
China has managed to avoid this dynamic. But to the extent that it sends its students to
study in U.S. and European business schools, they are taught the tactics of asset stripping
instead of capital formation – how to be extractive, not productive. They are taught that
privatization is more desirable than public ownership, and that financialization creates wealth
faster than it creates a debt burden. The product of such education therefore is not knowledge
but ignorance and a distortion of good policy analysis. Baltic austerity is applauded as the
"Baltic Miracle," not as demographic collapse and economic shrinkage.
The experience of post-Soviet economies when neoliberals were given a free hand after 1991
provides an object lesson. Much the same fate has befallen Greece, along with the rising
indebtedness of other economies to foreign bondholders and to their own rentier class operating
out of capital-flight centers. Economies are obliged to suspend democratic government policy in
favor of emergency creditor control.
The slow economic crash and debt deflation of these economies is depicted as a result of
"market choice." It turns out to be a "choice" for economic stagnation. All this is
rationalized by the economic theory taught in Western economics departments and business
schools. Such education is an indoctrination in stupidity – the kind of tunnel vision
that Thorstein Veblen called the "trained incapacity" to understand how economies really
work.
Most private fortunes in the West have stemmed from housing and other real estate financed
by debt. Until the 2008 crisis the magnitude of this property wealth was expanded largely by
asset-price inflation, aggravated by the reluctance of governments to do what Adams Smith, John
Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall and nearly all 19th-century classical economists recommended: to
keep land rent out of private hands, and to make the rise in land's rental value serve as the
tax base.
Failure to tax the land leaves its rental value "free" to be pledged as interest to banks
– which make larger and larger loans by lending against rising debt ratios. This "easy
credit" raises the price of obtaining home ownership. Sellers celebrate the result as "wealth
creation," and the mainstream media depict the middle class as growing richer by higher prices
for the homes its members have bought. But the debt-financed rise in housing prices ultimately
creates wealth mainly for banks and their bondholders.
Americans now have to pay up to 43 percent of their income for mortgage debt service,
federally guaranteed. This imposes such high costs for home ownership that it is pricing the
products of U.S. labor out of world markets. The pretense is that using bank credit (that is,
homebuyers' mortgage debt) to inflate the price of housing makes U.S. workers and the middle
class prosperous by enabling them to sell their homes to a new generation of buyers at higher
and higher prices each generation. This certainly does not make the buyers more prosperous. It
diverts their income away from buying the products of labor to pay interest to banks for
housing prices inflated on bank credit.
Consumer spending throughout most of the world aims above all at achieving status. In the
West this status rests largely on one's home and neighborhood, its schools, transportation and
other public investment. Land-price gains resulting from public investment in transportation,
parks and schools, other urban amenities and infrastructure, and from re-zoning land use. In
the West this rising rental value is turned into a cost, falling on homebuyers, who must borrow
more from the banks. The result is that public spending ultimately enriches the banks –
at the tax collector's expense.
Debt is the great threat to modern China's development. Burdening economies with a rentier
overhead imposes the quasi-feudal charges from which classical 19th-century economists hoped to
free industrial capitalism. The best protection against this rentier burden is simple: first,
tax away the land's rising rental valuation to prevent it from being paid out for bank loans;
and second, keep control of banks in public hands. Credit is necessary, but should be directed
productively and debts written down when paying them threatens to create financial
Armageddon.
Marx's views on the broad dynamics of economic history
Plato and Aristotle described a grand pattern of history. In their minds, this pattern was
eternally recurrent. Looking over three centuries of Greek experience, Aristotle found a
perpetual triangular sequence of democracy turning into oligarchy, whose members made
themselves into a hereditary aristocracy – and then some families sought to take the
demos into their own camp by sponsoring democracy, which in turn led to wealthy families
replacing it with an oligarchy, and so on.
The medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn Khaldun saw history as a rise and fall. Societies rose
to prosperity and power when leaders mobilized the ethic of mutual aid to gain broad support as
a communal spirit raised all members. But prosperity tended to breed selfishness, especially in
ruling dynasties, which Ibn Khaldun thought had a life cycle of only about 120 years. By the
19th century, Scottish Enlightenment philosophers elaborated this rise-and-fall theory,
applying it to regimes whose success bred arrogance and oligarchy.
Marx saw the long sweep of history as following a steady upward secular trend, from the
ancient slavery-and-usury mode of production through feudalism to industrial capitalism. And
not only Marx but nearly all 19th-century classical economists assumed that socialism in one
form or another would be the stage following industrial capitalism in this upward technological
and economic trajectory.
Instead, Western industrial capitalism turned into finance capitalism. In Aristotelian terms
the shift was from proto-democracy to oligarchy. Instead of freeing industrial capitalism from
landlords, natural resource owners and monopolists, Western banks and bondholders joined forces
with them, seeing them as major customers for as much interest-bearing credit as would absorb
the economic rent that governments would refrain from taxing. Their success has enabled banks
and bondholders to replace landlords as the major rentier class. Antithetical to socialism,
this retrogression towards feudal rentier privilege let real estate, financial interests and
monopolists exploit the economy by creating an expanding debt wedge.
Marx's Theories of Surplus Value (German Mehrwert), his history of classical political
economy, poked fun at David Ricardo's warning of economic Armageddon if economies let landlords
siphon off of all industrial profits to pay land rent. Profits and hence capital investment
would grind to a halt. But as matters have turned out, Ricardo's rentier Armageddon is being
created by his own banking class. Corporate profits are being devoured by interest payments for
corporate takeover debts and related financial charges to reward bondholders and raiders, and
by financial engineering using stock buybacks and higher dividend payouts to create "capital"
gains at the expense of tangible capital formation. Profits also are reduced by firms having to
pay higher wages to cover the cost of debt-financed housing, education and other basic expenses
for workers.
This financial dynamic has hijacked industrial capitalism. It is leading economies to
polarize and ultimately collapse under the weight of their debt burden. That is the inherent
dynamic of finance capitalism. The debt overhead leads to a financial crisis that becomes an
opportunity to impose emergency rule to replace democratic lawmaking. So contrary to Hayek's
anti-government "free enterprise" warnings, "slippery slope" to totalitarianism is not by
socialist reforms limiting the rentier class's extraction of economic rent and interest, but
just the opposite: the failure of society to check the rentier extraction of income vesting a
hereditary autocracy whose financial and rent-seeking business plan impoverishes the economy at
large.
Greece's debt crisis has all but abolished its democracy as foreign creditors have taken
control, superseding the authority of elected officials. From New York City's bankruptcy to
Puerto Rico's insolvency and Third World debtors subjected to IMF "austerity programs,"
national bankruptcies shift control to centralized financial planners in what Naomi Klein has
called Crisis Capitalism. Planning ends up centralized not in the hands of elected government
but in financial centers, which become the de facto government.
England and America set their economic path on this road under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan by 1980. They were followed by even more pro-financial privatization leaders in Tony
Blair's New Labour Party and Bill Clinton's New Democrats seeking to roll back a century of
classical reforms and policies that gradually were moving capitalism toward socialism. Instead,
these countries are suffering a rollback to neofeudalism, whose neo-rentiereconomic and
political ideology has become mainstream throughout the West. Despite seeing that this policy
has led to North America and Europe losing their former economic lead, the financial power
elite is simply taking its money and running.
So we are brought back to the question of what this means for China's educational policy and
also how it depicts economic statistics to distinguish between wealth and overhead. The great
advantage of such a distinction is to help steer economic growth along productive lines
favoring tangible capital formation instead of policies to get rich by taking on more and more
debt and by prying property away from the public domain.
If China's main social objective is to increase real output to raise living standards for
its population – while minimizing unproductive overhead and economic inequality –
then it is time to consider developing its own accounting format to trace its progress (or
shortcomings) along these lines. Measuring how its income and wealth are being obtained would
track how the economy is moving closer toward what Marx called socialism.
Of special importance, such an accounting format would revive Marx's classical distinction
between earned and unearned income. Its statistics would show how much of the rise in wealth
(and expenditure) in China – or any other nation – is a result of new tangible
capital formation as compared to higher rents, lending and interest, or the stock market.
These statistics would isolate income and fortunes obtained by zero-sum transfer payments
such as the rising rental value of land sites, natural resources and basic infrastructure
monopolies. National accounts also would trace overhead charges for interest and related
financial charges, as well as the economy's evolving credit and debt structure. That would
enable China to measure the economic effects of the banking privileges and other property
rights given to some people.
That is not the aim of Western national income statistics. In fact, applying the accounting
structure described above would track how Western economies are polarizing as a result of their
higher economic rent and interest payments crowding out spending on actual goods and services.
This kind of contrast would help explain global trends in pricing and competitiveness.
Distinguishing the FIRE sector from the rest of the economy would enable China to compare its
economic cost trends and overhead relative to those of other nations. I believe that these
statistics would show that its progress toward socialism also will explain the remarkable
economic advantage it has obtained. If China does indeed make this change, it will help people
both in and out of China see even more clearly what your government is doing on behalf of the
majority of its people. This may help other governments – including my own – learn
from your example and praise it instead of fearing it.
"... The 78 day all-out NATO bombing of Serbia was the act that, I believe, shocked/energized Russia's patriotic elements into action. The fact that little Serbia, after years of severe sanctions and every dirty trick imaginable would not buckle to the empire showed Russia that the Empire was not invincible. ..."
For me, I would say that the ' few days of bombing Serbia ' in 1999 ripped any last
vestiges of belief that the West was here to help mega violently (deliberate bombing
of the Chinese embassy) away from everyone. Of course plenty happened in the years running up
to that event The other is when China joined the WTO on 11/12/2001 and hit the ground running
– they were expected to behave meekly and ask the great white men for their advice and
follow it.
The 78 day all-out NATO bombing of Serbia was the act that, I
believe, shocked/energized Russia's patriotic elements into action. The
fact that little Serbia, after years of severe sanctions and every dirty
trick imaginable would not buckle to the empire showed Russia that the
Empire was not invincible.
The deliberate attack on the Chinese embassy IIRC triggered waves of spontaneous
demonstrations in China of such intensity that the Chinese government had to take means to
dampen. But, the message was not lost on the leadership.
Those acts of hubris and cruelty by the Empire may have been the beginning of its end.
Note from the author : As friends have quickly pointed out, the situation
is even worse than described here. Quarterly reviews by the troika will continue.
The German Bundestag will still vote on any debt deferrals, and -- as I do stress
-- the crushing austerity will continue indefinitely. A nightmare.
2010 to 2018 will go down in Greek history as an epic period of colonization;
of asset stripping and privatization; of unfunded health and education; of bankruptcies,
foreclosures, homelessness, and impoverishment; of unemployment, emigration,
and suicide. These were the years of the three memoranda, or "financial-assistance
programs" accompanied by "structural reforms," enacted supposedly to promote
Greek "recovery" from the slump and credit crunch of 2010. They were, in fact,
a fraud perpetrated on Greece and Europe, a jumble of bad policies based on
crude morality tales that catered to right-wing politics to cover up unpayable
debts.
This was a bailout? The word reeks of indulgence and implied disapproval. As
it was often said, "The Greeks had their party and now they must pay." Yes,
there was a party -- for oligarchs with ships and London homes and Swiss bank
accounts, for the military, for engineering and construction and armaments companies
from Germany and France and the United States. And yes, there was a bailout.
It came from Europe's taxpayers, and went to the troubled banks of France and
Germany. Greece was merely the pass-through, and the Greeks who paid dearly
with their livelihoods were just the patsies in the deal. The third "memorandum
of understanding" expires today. With Greece's
completion
of a three-year, 61.9-billion-euro eurozone emergency-loan package, it can once
again borrow at market rates. The expiration of the memorandum also ends, for
now, the direct control by Europe's "troika" -- the International Monetary Fund,
the European Commission, and the European Central Bank -- over the Greek government.
But its conditions, constraints, and consequences will endure.
Read also: Conference of the modern Left in Iceland: learning from each other
Back in 2010, Greece, along with Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy, was
definitely in trouble. The Great Financial Crisis crashed into all of Europe,
but it hit the weaker countries hardest -- and Greece was the
weakest of them all. Its economy shrunk by a quarter, and youth unemployment
rose to roughly 50 percent. The memorandum was, for all concerned, the easy
way out. It started a game of "extend and pretend" on the Greek debt, based
on optimistic forecasts and on policies of reform that had no basis in the reality
of Greek economic conditions.
The policies came from the IMF -- its standard repertory of austerity and
"reform." But its staff and directors knew from the beginning that these measures
would not suffice. IMF executive directors from Australia, Switzerland, Brazil,
and China voiced objections. Channels were therefore bypassed, objections ignored.
The Fund was nearly out of work and money because of the failures of its programs
-- and the relative success of countries that ignored them -- all over the world.
And its managing director at the time wished to be the next president of France.
So Greece, which is to say its creditors -- especially French and German banks
-- received the largest loan in IMF history (relative to its ownership share).
And that 289-billion-euro loan came largely from U.S. taxpayers.
In Athens, teams of functionaries from the Fund, the European Central Bank,
and the European Commission came to Greece, where they stayed in fancy hotels
at Greek expense and were escorted by uniformed police from ministry to ministry
to dictate policy in detail. (Such a nice gig, in a warm and sunny place, so
close to the sea.) In 2015, they were lodged for a time in a four-star hotel,
deprived of their convoys, and given protection by elite forces dressed in plain
clothes. They didn't like that at all, and their bosses, Mario Draghi and Christine
Lagarde, complained loudly on their behalf.
And what of the policies? Public assets were to be dumped en masse at fire-sale
prices, but only if they were already profitable. (Regional airports making
losses, for example, stayed with the state.) Dutch dairies and German drug companies
were taken care of. Labor markets were deregulated while collective bargaining
was wiped out -- an unethical experiment on an untenable premise. Neither German
nor Chinese industry was moving to Greece even if the Greeks worked for free.
The value-added tax was raised, pensions were cut, and hundreds of thousands
of civil servants were sacked. Ministries lost cleaning ladies, who set up camp,
bless them, in front of the Ministry of Finance. The Greeks rebelled in 2015,
as they were right to do. But the European Central Bank held the high card:
It could shut the banks and confiscate deposits, forcing Greece out of the euro
and perhaps out of the European Union. The government, undermined from within,
capitulated. The third memorandum was signed, and Syriza, the left-wing coalition
that had swept into power in January, by that July had become the model prisoner
of the European elites.
The irony is that in 2012 Greece's debts were already postponed, so that
from late 2015 to 2022 there would be a grace period with relatively few major
payments due. Now there is a primary-budget surplus and the markets need not
be tested. So the memorandum can end, but austerity will not; the debt still
looms in the long term, so the commitment to surplus extends for more than 40
years. In any event, the Greeks' will to resistance appears to have been broken,
so it seems safe enough to leave them alone. For now.
But the damage done extends far beyond Greece. The cynicism and brutality
of what happened there is for everyone to see. The fact that Europe imposed
a policy of privation on one of its weakest members -- not for its own sake,
and not with any expectation of economic success, but to intimidate the Italians
and the French, as the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble conceded to
the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis privately in 2015 -- was not lost
on British voters who chose Brexit in 2016. The Greek debacle helped to turn
the French left against Europe, and fueled the inchoate coalition now in power
in Italy. The German and east European far right is surely not motivated by
sympathy -- on the contrary, they despise the Greeks. But they do resent the
supposed "solidarity" -- a fiction if ever there was one -- that Germany's Chancellor
Angela Merkel and her allies invoked to sell their parliaments and voters on
the idea of the Greek loans.
Europe is therefore rotting Hat both ends. Its economy must remain unified,
but it is coming apart at its political seams. It needs institutions and policies
of social stabilization, financial reform, and full employment -- a dramatic
change in ideas and action at the continental level to thwart the rising tide
of nationalist reaction. There is therefore a growing sense, among those who
are watching closely, that a major democratic reform -- a New Deal for Europe
-- is the only way to hold it together in the long run.
* James K. Galbraith is author of Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction
of Greece and the Future of Europe . In 2015 he served as an informal assistant
to the finance minister of Greece.
"... In this version of 21st century slavery, all these disadvantages have been eliminated! Slaves stay in their homecountry: there is no need to bring them from there, no need to live amongst them and to feed them! Slaves are forced to work hard in the hope of paying off their debt, so they are motivated and hardworking. And most importantly, no civil war in the USA! ..."
This year, the Ukraine Prime Minister Groisman said that the external debt is 83% of the GDP. And by the end of the year, having
been pressurized by the IMF, it will reach 90%. In order to service its external debts, the Ukraine spends $4.8 billion a year.
This is real slavery - only a new, improved version of it. From the 17th to the 19 centuries, slavery in [the North American
British colonies and then - ME] the United States had a number of serious deficiencies: slaves had to be brought all the way from
Africa; slaves were not extremely industrious; Americans themselves had to live amongst the slaves; and, most unpleasantly, all
this led to civil war in the United States.
In this version of 21st century slavery, all these disadvantages have been eliminated! Slaves stay in their homecountry: there
is no need to bring them from there, no need to live amongst them and to feed them! Slaves are forced to work hard in the hope
of paying off their debt, so they are motivated and hardworking. And most importantly, no civil war in the USA!
"... Turkey fell into the same deep state bankers financial trap, that Spain Greece Italy fell for. Bail out a vunrable country then pull the rug out ! You own them ! So I would slightly disagree with it being entirely of there own making. I blame the Rothchild family. ..."
At the beginning of the year one U.S. dollar cost 3.5 lira. At the beginning of August it
cost 4.80 lira. It then went up to 7.00 lira/$ and at Friday's closing it was down again at
6.00 TL/$. But Monday morning lira will again
lose more of its value:
Turkey's credit rating was cut further into junk Friday by S&P Global Ratings and Moody's
Investors Service, which said the volatile lira and wide current-account deficit may
undermine the Middle East's largest economy.
S&P reduced Turkey's foreign-currency rating to four notches below investment grade at
B+ from BB-, on par with Argentina, Greece and Fiji. Moody's lowered its grade to Ba3 from
Ba2, three notches below investment grade. The ratings companies said the weak currency,
runaway inflation and current-account deficit are Turkey's key vulnerabilities .
Turkey's crisis is
homemade . The current spat with the United States only exaggerates it. For years Turkey
borrowed large amounts of money from abroad and invested it into local infrastructure instead
of producing exportable products. Its current account deficit this year will again be some $50
to $60 billion. International banks and other foreign lenders now demand interests rates above
20% from Turkish lenders because the chance of losing the lent money is high.
After the 17% crash on August 13 down to 7 TL/$ the Turkish Central Bank used some one-time
measures to support the currency without raising its interest rate. The Turkish president
Erdogan is ideologically adverse to interests and keeps the bank from doing what it must do to
cool the Turkish economy and to stabilize the currency.
Erdogan asked Russia for help but received nothing but good advice. He also called in
favors. When in June 2017 Saudi Arabia's clown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) tried to take
over Qatar and to steal its juicy $350 billion sovereign wealth fund, the emir of Qatar called
on Turkey for help. Erdogan sent the Turkish army and air force. His troops protected Qatar
from a Saudi invasion.
With the lira in trouble the emir flew to Ankara and promised a new $15 billion investment
into Turkey. Additionally some mysterious cargo was unloaded from his plane. That
saved the lira for a few days. But Turkey's structural problems are unsolved. Erdogan is no
longer trusted and his son in law, who he made finance minister, lacks the necessary
qualification for the job.
Thus :
"We forecast a recession next year," S&P said. "Inflation will peak at 22 percent over
the next four months, before subsiding to below 20 percent by mid-2019."
The Qatari move came a few days before its arch enemy Saudi Arabia also moved into the area.
On Friday the U.S. announced that Saudi Arabia would support the U.S. occupied north-east Syria
with 100 million
dollar . The Wahhabi Saudis are now financing the secular Kurdish terror organization
PKK/YPG, the local U.S. proxy in north-east Syria.
If the Saudi clown prince MbS wants to take revenge on Turkey's Erdogan for messing up his
plans for Qatar, he now has his chance.
Posted by b on August 18, 2018 at 03:56 PM |
Permalink
One refinement to add to 'b's outstanding post (how the hell does he do it, miraculous !) as
far as I can see Turkey fell into the same deep state bankers financial trap, that Spain
Greece Italy fell for. Bail out a vunrable country then pull the rug out ! You own them ! So
I would slightly disagree with it being entirely of there own making. I blame the Rothchild
family.
Moody's and S&P ratings agencies are fraudulent institutions. For having AAA rated
billions worth of junk mortgages, they should have been indicted and prosecuted.
Excellent analysis again, b. You surpass yourself. There is something you talk about that has
always intrigued me
"For years Turkey borrowed large amounts of money from abroad and invested it into local
infrastructure instead of producing exportable products."
There is a parallel here with Spain. From entry into the Euro in 1999 the floodgates of
credit opened. Bankers, politicians and builders were involved in creating vast swathes of
speculative urbanization; two airports were built which now stand empty, a formula 1 track
hosted five races before closing, a phantom theme park; huge, almost empty accommodation
complexes, and the list goes on. The ghost airport in Ciudad Real, which cost £1.2
million euros, was sold off to Chinese buyers for a mere 10,000 euros. The "Cajas", the
regional banks, were all bailed out by the government.
Apart from local corruption, which is nothing new, I think there must have been a
deliberate strategy on the part of EU elites not to finance industrial projects that would
generate export currency, and hence compete with EU industrial powers such as Germany (I once
read Spanish academic paper arguing this but have not managed to track it down). When the
same happens in Turkey, obviously not an EU country, you have to wonder whether is it part of
a transatlantic banker strategy: corrupt national elites finance corrupt local elites to
build ghost infrastructures as cheap and shoddy as you can get, the banks that financed it
get bailed out if it all crashes. What's not to like?
Turks can't avoid Greek-style crisis now. The solution calls for a violent swing in trade
balance from huge deficit to sizable surplus, somewhere in a range of $100B. That can't
happen unless people of Turkey are warehoused in slave-labor-condition factories that can be
competitive enough to displace Asian players. That entails bone-crushing fall in living
standards.
All in all, 20 percent decline in GDP is now all but certainty. The longer Erdogan tries to
avoid the harsh medicine, the deeper this cancer goes. He should either bow to IMF, or to
exit NATO, join BRICS and ask for loans from that grouping.
Of course, Turkish military can say bye-bye to its present size. It's unsustainable.
Financial crunch will reduce Turkish armed forces to less than half of their present
size.
And if Erdogan wants to keep his soldiers well-equipped for half the price - which he should
- he'll have to switch to much more reasonably priced Russian weaponry. Once he does that,
even Russia may contribute $10B to his bailout kitty.
Otherwise, Erdogan is a dead man. The economic hurricane barreling his way is only gathering
strength with every passing day. And all he is doing is unfurling umbrellas and increasing
the volume of music.
That list of infrastructure @ Lochern mentions looks geared toward the holiday industry which
in the past has been a major income for Turkey ! Worth at the time perhaps investing in. Very
popular with Eurapians but very popular with Russians. My wild guess would be---- some dodgey
ploy by the west to drive a wedge between Russia and Turky, devideding and ruling both! By
meens of conflict and bank debt .The gains would be numerous long term and short term. But as
already mentioned may back fire and bring Russia and Turkey closer. I hope so.
Much of Turkeys external debt is private and not government . Their BIS controlled central
bank kept interest rates high. This forced Turkish banks to take out loans in USD or Euro
which had lower interest rates to meet loan demands in the private corporate sector , which
they made at higher interest rates after exchanging for Lira. More profitable. The assumption
was there would be a relatively stable exchange rate. So there was risk.
That risk made them vulnerable fx attack by the globalist banking cartel. When Erdogan
took over more control from the TCB last month to reduce interest rates and reduce demand for
foreign loans this was seen as an act of war. The independence of the central bank must be
defended. Trumps additional tarrif increases, mild as they were were simply a symbolic
barking of orders to take Turkey down
Looking at the broader picture. Since the 2008 financial blowout there has been "carry
trade" fueled by zero-cost liquidity pumped into the global system by quantitative easing,
which was then shipped to high-interest emerging markets such as Brazil, Turkey and other
countries.
With the beginning of the Fed's "tapering" of QE and rising interest rates since 2015, the
whole financial system has triggered a "reverse carry trade" where dollars flow out of
emerging markets back to safer havens. This is what you are seeing in Turkey, Argentina,
Russia, Brazil, etc.
The last 10 years are a replay of the decade running up to the 1997/1998 crisis. While the
1985 'Plaza Accord' dollar devaluation was not exactly QE, it had the same intent and results
– a flood of cheap money and dollar debt, and therefore growing global dependence on
the dollar and vulnerability to US monetary and economic policy
Some say countries like Turkey should know better, but countries have little control over
their monetary policy under the global and independent central banking system forced on them.
Go against this system and you will be hit with sanctions , subject to regime change or will
be invaded
So call it a homegrown crisis if thats the reality you choose to live in. Who am I to say
otherwise?
These rating agencies are the same ones that rated junk mortgage bonds AA. They are for sale
to highest bidder or since they haven't been prosecuted for their criminal behavior,
vulnerable to threats from the same political machine that turned a blind eye in 2008.
Turkey may have homegrown economic problems as you have pointed out but they certainly have
even more problems with a vindictive and extremely corrupt Uncle Sam who ruthlessly punish
any and all independent actions.
Another excellent blog B. I agree with many of the above commenters that the breadth and
depth of the analysis on MOA is truly amazing.
Pft@13. Good analysis as well.
However, I would expect that Turkey will not be another Greece. Rather I expect Turkey to
get help from its friends to stabilize its economic position, resist U.S. sanctions and avoid
an IMF bail-out.
With the support of Qatar, and I would expect China as well, I would expect Turkey to
protect its banks. However, it is also possible that they will let some private Turkish
companies, with dollar denominated debts, default. Such defaults, combined with the pressure
that declining dollar liquidity is already putting on other emerging markets and Italy, would
be destabilizing for the Western financial system. Sooner or later, and I suspect sooner, the
FED will be required to start printing money again, which will reverse the dollar's recent
strength and relieve the pressure on Turkey.
At the end of the day, however, I expect that this episode will be another step in the
direction of de-dollarization and will further reduce the ability of the U.S. to use economic
sanctions to bully its adversaries.
A strange paradox of life !
Owe your bank 1000 the bank manager will make you bankrupt, owe the bank a million and he'll
invite you home for dinner ! More to lose !
By this token I'd like to think, the more country's that refuse there debt, the less power
the west will have ! The less credibility and the less fear and influence they can inflict
.
If the west wants to weaponise banking so be it ! Bring it on. Let's pull the rug out from
under the banks/Rothchilds.
Feet ! Natural justice !
Pft @ 13 said:"Some say countries like Turkey should know better, but countries have little
control over their monetary policy under the global and independent central banking system
forced on them. Go against this system and you will be hit with sanctions , subject to regime
change or will be invaded."
CDWaller @ 15 said:"These rating agencies are the same ones that rated junk mortgage bonds
AA. They are for sale to highest bidder or since they haven't been prosecuted for their
criminal behavior, vulnerable to threats from the same political machine that turned a blind
eye in 2008."
"Washington allies with ISIS as great power conflict trumps "war on terror"
7 August 2018
The "National Defense Strategy" document released at the beginning of this year declared
bluntly that the nearly two-decade focus by the US military on the so-called "global war on
terrorism" had come to an end. In its place, a new strategic orientation was being introduced
based on preparing for "great power" confrontation, i.e., war with nuclear-armed Russia and
China.
This was the first such defense strategy to be issued by the Pentagon in over a decade and
expressed the urgency with which Washington views the preparations for a third world war.
A particularly crude and criminal outcome of this policy shift is becoming increasingly
apparent in three major theaters where US forces are engaged in active combat operations.
Reports from Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan provide firm evidence that the US and its local
proxies are allying themselves with and employing the services of elements of ISIS and Al
Qaeda in the pursuit of Washington's broader strategic interests.
In Yemen, hundreds, if not thousands, of fighters from Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP), branded by the US government as the "most dangerous" affiliate of the loose
international Al Qaeda network, have been recruited by Washington's closest allies in the
Arab world, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to fight as foot soldiers in the
near-genocidal US-backed war that these Persian Gulf oil monarchies have been waging against
the impoverished country of Yemen since 2015.
According to an investigative report published Monday by the Associated Press, the
Saudi-led coalition "cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities
and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash Hundreds
more were recruited to join the coalition itself."
It added that "Key participants in the pacts said the US was aware of the arrangements and
held off on any drone strikes."
"Elements of the US military are clearly aware that much of what the US is doing in Yemen
is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that," Michael Horton, a senior analyst at the
Jamestown Foundation, a CIA-connected Washington think tank, told the AP.
"However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the US views as
Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen," Horton
added.
This is a gross understatement. Washington is providing indispensable military support for
a war that has reduced millions of Yemenis to the brink of starvation. It is prepared to wipe
out much of the country's population in order to bolster its strategic position and that of
the reactionary Arab regimes with which it is allied against the perceived threat of Iranian
influence to US regional hegemony.
The war has escalated in recent days in the ongoing siege of the Yemeni Red Sea Port of
Hodeidah, which was green-lighted by the Trump administration. The UN has warned that a
quarter of a million people could lose their lives in this operation, while millions more
across the country may die of starvation if it shuts down the port, the sole lifeline for
food, fuel and medicine for at least 70 percent of the population.
Recruiting Al Qaeda fighters to slaughter Yemenis in this immense and bloody war crime is
entirely consistent with US policy.
In regard to Syria, meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry last Thursday issued a statement
warning that ISIS has increasingly concentrated its forces in the area around al-Tanaf, near
the Syrian-Iraqi border, where the US military maintains a military base and has unilaterally
declared a 34-mile exclusion zone around it. US troops there have provided training to
so-called "rebels" opposing the government of President Bashar al-Assad and appear to be
providing a security screen for ISIS."
"Under the mantle of the "war on terrorism," successive US governments, Democratic and
Republican alike, have not only conducted wars whose victims number in the millions, but also
carried out an unrelenting attack on democratic rights, from domestic spying to censoring the
Internet.
The emerging international alliance between the Pentagon and ISIS only serves to expose
the real interests underlying these policies, which are bound up with the waging of war to
offset US imperialism's loss of economic preeminence and defend its crumbling global
hegemony, and domestic repression to sustain a social order characterized by the most extreme
inequality in modern American history."
"While many of the countries that have received detainees have chosen to keep quiet about
the repatriations, the Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday that the Republic of Macedonia had taken
custody of a group of foreign fighters.
"Today's transfer of Foreign Terrorist Fighters to their country of origin, Macedonia, marks
a significant milestone in the much-needed cooperative effort to combat the global threat of
terrorism," Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told CNN."
Huh? Are the Westie media not even pretending any more, that they are fighting
against the terrorists? Most of us know that was B.S. anyhow, but the broader
(ignoramuses) public, the kind of morons who watch CNN every day, were not ever supposed to
be let in on that little secret.
"... So why should you care? Why does that matter to you or me? Well, like most emerging market financial crisis there is the danger of contagion . ..."
"... Turkey's economy is four times the size of Greece, and roughly equal in size to Lehman Brothers circa 2008. ..."
"... Turkey's other borders face six nations: Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Nakhchivan, a territory affiliated with Azerbaijan. Five of those are involved in ongoing armed conflicts or outright war. ..."
"... NATO has long outlived its' usefulness. Cancel its' stipend and bring our soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and women home! Put them to work here. Fighting fires. ..."
"... NATO only seems to be useful to the hegemony that supports it. Peace is not it's mission. ..."
By now you've probably heard that Turkey is having a financial crisis, and Trump appears to be pouring gasoline on it.
But you may not understand what is happening, or you may not know why it's important.
So let's do a quick recap
.
Turkey's currency fell to a new record low today. Year to date it's lost almost half its value, leading some investors and
lenders inside and outside of Turkey to lose confidence in the Turkish economy.
...
"Ninety percent of external public and private sector debt is denominated in foreign currencies," he said.
Here's the problem. Because of the country's falling currency, that debt just got a lot more expensive.
A Turkish business now effectively owes twice as much as it did at the beginning of the year. "You are indebted in the U.S.
dollar or euro, but your revenue is in your local currency," explained Lale Akoner, a market strategist with Bank of New York
Mellon's Asset Management business. She said Turkey's private sector currently owes around $240 billion in foreign debt.
This is all about hot money that has been washing around in a world of artificially low interest rates, and now, finally, an
external shock happened. As it
always happens .
The bid-ask spread, or the difference between the price dealers are willing to buy and sell the lira at, has widened beyond
the gap seen at the depth of the global financial crisis in 2008, following Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s collapse.
So why should you care? Why does that matter to you or me? Well, like most emerging market financial crisis there is the
danger of contagion
.
The turmoil follows a similar currency crash in Argentina that led to a rescue by the International Monetary Fund. In recent
days, the Russian ruble, Indian rupee and South African rand have also tumbled dramatically.
Investors are waiting for the next domino to fall. They're on the lookout for signs of a repeat of the 1997-1998 Asian financial
crisis that began when the Thai baht imploded.
A minor currency devaluation of the Thai baht in 1997 eventually led to 20% of the world's population being thrust into poverty.
It led to Russia defaulting in 1998, LTCM requiring a Federal Reserve bailout, and eventually Argentina defaulting in 2001.
Turkey's economy is four times the size of Greece, and roughly equal in size to Lehman Brothers circa 2008.
The markets want Turkey to run to the IMF for a loan, but that would require a huge interest rate hike and austerity measures
that would thrust Turkey into a long depression. However, that isn't the
biggest obstacle .
The second is that Erdogan would have to bury his hatchet with the United States, which remains the IMF's largest shareholder.
Without U.S. support, Turkey has no chance of securing an IMF bailout program.
There is another danger, a political one and not so much an economic one, that could have dramatic implications.
If Erdogan isn't overthrown, or humbled, then there is an ironclad certainty that Turkey will
leave NATO and
the West.
Turkey, unlike Argentina, does not seem poised to turn to the International Monetary Fund in order to stave off financial collapse,
nor to mend relations with Washington.
If anything, the Turkish President looks to be doubling down in challenging the US and the global financial markets -- two
formidable opponents.
...
Turkey would probably no longer view the US as a reliable partner and strategic ally.
Whoever ends up leading the country, a wounded Turkey would most likely seek to shift the center of gravity away from the West
and toward Russia, Iran and Eurasia.
It would make Turkey less in tune with US and European objectives in the Middle East, meaning Turkey would seek to assert a
more independent security and defense policy.
Erdogan has warned Trump that Turkey would
"seek new friends" , although Russia and China haven't yet stepped up to the plate to bat for him.
Russia, Iran and China do have a common interest when in comes to undermining the
petrodollar . Pulling Turkey into their sphere of influence would be a coup.
Turkey lies at a historic, strategic crossroad. The
bridge between the peaceful West and the war-ridden dictatorships of the East that the West likes to bomb.
On its Western flank, Turkey borders Greece and Bulgaria, Western-facing members of the European Union. A few years ago, Turkey
-- a member of NATO -- was preparing the join Europe as a full member.
Turkey's other borders face six nations: Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Nakhchivan, a territory affiliated with
Azerbaijan. Five of those are involved in ongoing armed conflicts or outright war.
Losing Turkey would be a huge setback for NATO, the MIC, and the permanent war machine.
more struggling economies are starting to get it. Trade wealth for the rulers (IMF supporters) to be paid by the rest of us.
Fight back. Squeeze the bankers balls. Can't have our resources, now way, no how, without a fight.
in a flailing Turkey? Weren't there some outside potential takers encouraging China when it floated its currency proposal?
Nastarana on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 8:41pm
NATO has long outlived its' usefulness. Cancel its' stipend and bring our soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and women home! Put them to work here. Fighting fires.
Patrolling our shores for drug running and toxic dumping. Teaching school, 10 kids per class maximum. Refurbishing buildings and
housing stock. Post Cold War, an military alliance with Turkey makes no sense.
Ukraine has huge problems because far right nationalists while hate corruption, do not control economics and oligarchs who
control it do not intent to share their profits with the population, who is on the edge of starvation.
Breaking economic ties with Russia helped to relegate Ukraine to semi-colonial status as without cooperation with Russian
industries and access to Russian market (which they know very well) many Ukrainian manufacturing industries are less
viable..
Ukraine was already converted into debt-slave, and it is extremely difficult to climb out of this hole without default.
At the same time it serves are powerful anti-Russian force in the region and as such will be semi-supported by both the USA
and EU. for example attacks on Ukrainian currency probably will be avoided.
This is a variant of " don't cry for me Argentina" situation.
Notable quotes:
"... Notably that while the west is gradually leaning toward dumping Ukraine and hoping Russia will solve the problem, the warning signs are there that Russia has no intention of bailing out an exhausted Ukraine, and that this time it is going to be allowed to fail all the way down. The west should be warned that nobody is riding to the rescue and pouring their resources into stabilizing Ukraine – if the west cannot do it, the alternative is collapse and draining emergency work to keep the population from starvation. Prosperity is an impossible dream now, and the people – I think – would be pretty happy to be back where they were before the glorious Maidan. ..."
"... Interestingly, something that was not touched upon in the 'Necessary' section was the elimination of the oligarchy in Kiev and other major cities. I will declare frankly that I have no idea how this might be achieved – as discussed before several times, the Ukrainian oligarchs control something in the order of 70% of Ukrainian GDP, and are not about to gift any of it back to the Ukrainian state. ..."
"... You'll know there's no more money in Ukraine when the oligarchs leave, and I see no sign of that so far, while it is evident they intend to be a big part of any future rebuilding. They've already successfully stolen most of the IMF money, and plainly think an even bigger payday is still in the offing. ..."
"... Eventually, if the USA is unsuccessful in forcing the outbreak of another world war, the west will get around to either asking Russia to help, or trying to dump Ukraine on Russia. ..."
"... Whatever happens, the dream of Ukrainian nationalists to forge a great and powerful ... nation of Ukraine is always going to remain that – a dream. They're happy enough at present scampering about in the ruins and glorying in their imagination of great power, but they are kings of the dungheap without any clue of nation-building. ..."
"... The few who both hated Russia and honestly aspired to a Great Ukraine – free of corruption and able to pay its way through judicious management of its undeniable resources and casting off the peasant mentality – have no influence, and operate at the pleasure of the power-brokers; they are allowed to dabble at anti-corruption until their probing becomes uncomfortable, and then they are discredited and fired, if not charged with the crimes they say they are investigating. ..."
That is indeed an interesting piece – generally speaking, we most enjoy writing with
which we agree, and I mostly agree with it and feel the ring of familiarity, because some of
it is what we have been saying here for a couple of years. Notably that while the west is
gradually leaning toward dumping Ukraine and hoping Russia will solve the problem, the
warning signs are there that Russia has no intention of bailing out an exhausted Ukraine, and
that this time it is going to be allowed to fail all the way down. The west should be warned
that nobody is riding to the rescue and pouring their resources into stabilizing Ukraine
– if the west cannot do it, the alternative is collapse and draining emergency work to
keep the population from starvation. Prosperity is an impossible dream now, and the people
– I think – would be pretty happy to be back where they were before the glorious
Maidan.
Interestingly, something that was not touched upon in the 'Necessary' section was the
elimination of the oligarchy in Kiev and other major cities. I will declare frankly that I
have no idea how this might be achieved – as discussed before several times, the
Ukrainian oligarchs control something in the order of 70% of Ukrainian GDP, and are not about
to gift any of it back to the Ukrainian state.
But for so long as Ukraine continues to elect one oligarch after another to the office of
President, the oligarch of the moment will be far more occupied with increasing his/her
personal wealth and power, and settling scores with rivals, than with governance and
accountability. At the same time, there is no use hoping the President will be a poor man or
woman, because they generally do not have the worldly education to grasp the problem and
envision solutions while being simultaneously beset from all sides by the oligarchy, seeking
to retain its power and influence.
You'll know there's no more money in Ukraine when the oligarchs leave, and I see no
sign of that so far, while it is evident they intend to be a big part of any future
rebuilding. They've already successfully stolen most of the IMF money, and plainly think an
even bigger payday is still in the offing.
The United States has largely forgotten Ukraine, as it was only ever a pretext for a
full-court press against Russia anyway, and it now has enough Russophobia sustainment in its
ditzy population to press forward without the need to invoke sympathy for Ukraine. Europe is
still quite interested in a resolution, but only because of its fear that it is going to get
stuck with the booby prize, and be made to assume responsibility for getting Ukraine on its
feet somehow, perhaps even absorbing it. Eventually, if the USA is unsuccessful in
forcing the outbreak of another world war, the west will get around to either asking Russia
to help, or trying to dump Ukraine on Russia.
Whatever happens, the dream of Ukrainian nationalists to forge a great and powerful
... nation of Ukraine is always going to remain that – a dream. They're happy enough at
present scampering about in the ruins and glorying in their imagination of great power, but
they are kings of the dungheap without any clue of nation-building.
The few who both hated Russia and honestly aspired to a Great Ukraine – free of
corruption and able to pay its way through judicious management of its undeniable resources
and casting off the peasant mentality – have no influence, and operate at the pleasure
of the power-brokers; they are allowed to dabble at anti-corruption until their probing
becomes uncomfortable, and then they are discredited and fired, if not charged with the
crimes they say they are investigating.
Well said. Presumably, the Donbass will pull away from Ukraine and vote to joint Russia and
Russia will approve for any number of reasons but certainly including humanitarian,
ethnic/cultural connections and military considerations. Other regions such as Odessa could
jump aboard as well.
There may be a mass exodus from what is left – the grifter to the West and those
seeking a better life to the east. The Nazis will remain behind and may serve some purpose
such as providing a pool of mercenaries for CIA projects.
I, for one, do not think the Donbass will be an overwhelming economic burden in the long
run. The population has shown resolve and resilience. Given leadership and material aid, they
can rebuild fairly quickly I think.
Well Canada has rather upset the apple cart, hasn't it? On the one hand, western moralizing
and sermonizing other states about what they should do used to be only restricted to mostly
enemy states, preferably much less rich ones, on the other hand values only mean something if
you actually are willing to pay a literal price in either money, blood or both.
The financial papers are saying that this will damage SA's the confidence of foreign
investors, precisely those SA is trying to attract so that it can start to diversify its
economy away from petroleum based products, but we have yet to see if this will have a
noticeable effect, rather than just a wish effect.
The US has said Sweet FA, along with the rest of the sermonizing weapon selling west, so
Canada has very little support from its allies. So far. Germany should be an obvious
supporter but if pissing of the Saudis makes it more dependent on Russia ergo there are
plenty of reasons that can be wheeled out to keep treading lightly.
It looks to me as just another sign of the existing order breaking down, whether or not
Canada back tracks or not. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.
As for the so-called free and democratic media, well they only further discredit
themselves publicly.
Meanwhile, I just checked out the Canada headlines and this jumped out:
Global Affairs Canada would not say whether Canadian taxpayers are financing the sale, and
would not provide any other details about the arms deal
Few details are available about the proposed sale of weapons, as the Canadian
government says such information is commercially sensitive. It has declined to name the
company selling the guns or indicate how many rifles would be sent to Ukraine. However
Conservative MP James Bezan, who has been in contact with the Canadian company that has the
agreement to supply the rifles to Ukraine, confirmed the deal's likely timeline. He declined
to name the firm since the sale still has to be finalized.
Nicolas Moquin, a spokesman for the Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters,
said the Canadian military has been providing sniper and counter-sniper training to Ukraine's
security forces since September 2015. He said Canada is not looking at this time of providing
additional sniper training to coincide with the delivery of new weapons .
####
OR, is this just Canada selling sniper rifles that are not necessarily of Canadian
origin?
According the the video below with Canadian MP James Barazan, he says there are large
numbers of weapons such as assault rifles, sniper systems, mortar systems, counter battery
radar etc. sitting in warehouses in Jordan (& Toronto) that were supposed to go to
Kurdistan.
Yes,, the world order is falling apart. For some reason, this state of affairs reminds me of
the observation that married couples who are heading toward divorce are on that path not
because of a lack of communications but because they are now communicating for the first
time.
Ukraine is awash in small arms – they could give them out with a box of tea at the
supermarket as a promotion, and it would still take months to work through their supply. The
last thing they need is more rifles. On the other hand, new ones will probably fetch a good
price on e-Bay.
Oh, dear; Ukraine has more or less lost its case before the WTO, in which it wept that Russia's unfair imposition of an embargo
on its railway cars and rolling stock constituted a violation which caused a former $3.2 Billion in annual sales – more than it
realizes from transit fees for carrying Russian gas to Europe – to collapse to $150 Million. The WTO bought the Russian rationale
that Russian inspectors going to Ukraine to ensure the product conformed to Russian standards would be in fear of their lives.
But the WTO ruled that the security situation was such that Russian inspectors sent to check that Ukraine's exports complied
with Russian standards would have been risking their lives, and Russia was therefore justified in not sending them to Ukraine.
"The panel fully agreed with Russia's position and recognized that there was no systematic restriction of imports of Ukrainian
equipment by Russia," Russia's Ministry of Trade and Economy said in a statement.
The WTO did go on to say Russia could have carried out the inspections outside Ukraine, but therein lies a sandbag to the head
that Ukraine probably spotted already – if Russian inspectors found shoddy work or any other reason to refuse the offered goods,
to say nothing of the probability that no contracting position between the two countries even exists any more, then Ukraine would
be out the sale plus whatever costs it incurred to ship the goods outside Ukraine.
Looks like the aim of US sanctions is to ratchet the hostility up with Russia to the level of
a full blown cold war. Ukraine can be a victim.
Notable quotes:
"... Meanwhile, you'll get bogged down in Ukraine. You'll face tough choices (sanctions will get North Korea-style quickly, and even Chinese sympathy will get questionable), like should you spend your scarce resources on modern weaponry or a large security force to keep Ukraine pacified? ..."
"... Very few people in Russia would want Ukraine now. The consensus is: "good riddance". In Ukraine, on the other hand, there are people who want Russia to invade. Some are waiting for someone else to liberate them from Nazis (they apparently are not familiar with Protestant wisdom that God helps those who help themselves), some pray for a pretext to invite NATO/US (as if anyone is willing to die for them). ..."
We'll need an anti-sanctions law regardless of whether or not we are going to invade.
Well, I'd say it's a precondition to invading Ukraine. If you're incapable of
making such a simple law, you're sure as hell incapable of invading Ukraine. And you do need
the law if you want to avoid the sanctions creating the perverse incentives inside Russia, like
the biggest banks not having branches in the Crimea. Decoupling from the US dollar is no help,
since US sanctions are extraterritorial, if you didn't notice, so they affect euro or even
Chinese yuan denominated transactions, too.
Eastern Europeans will never mobilise. What would mass mobilisation even look like in a
country like Hungary? Instead, they'll petition USA to station more of its troops in Eastern
Europe. A lot more, like hundreds of thousands more.
Within living memory, Hungary had armed forces of 150,000 troops and 1,500 main
battle tanks (admittedly, the majority were somewhat obsolete), with hundreds of fighter and
light bomber jets (MiG-21s and Su-22s etc.), and we were the slackers in the Eastern Bloc, not
spending on defense as much as other neighbors of us. Increasing defense spending to 2% of GDP
is what's the plan. If you invaded and occupied the whole of Ukraine, it could easily go up to
4-5%.
Of course, the Americans might come in numbers, too. But you're delusional here:
Doing so will impose costs on the USA. Actually, this is one of the few ways Russia could
impose tangible costs on USA: by stoking tensions in Eastern Europe.
We have no military industry to speak of. Most of our neighbors do have some, but
even they are nowhere near self-sufficiency. You can guess who we'll buy our weapons from.
Poland recently offered to pay for an American base on its soil. So it won't be much of a cost
for the US, it might actually be quite beneficial.
Meanwhile, you'll get bogged down in Ukraine. You'll face tough choices (sanctions will
get North Korea-style quickly, and even Chinese sympathy will get questionable), like should
you spend your scarce resources on modern weaponry or a large security force to keep Ukraine
pacified?
Mass deportations is the best part about occupying the Ukraine!
Stalin's USSR at the height of its power only deported much smaller populations.
You'd need a lot of people to achieve that. But let's assume you'll manage to do that. It will,
of course, create a huge backlash against Russia: popular opinion will get united against
Russians. (Defense spending quickly up to 5% of GDP or higher.) The Ukrainians in our countries
will of course enter the workforce and join anti-Russian ragtag militias to control the border.
Instead they would have to contend with an insurgency in Eastern Poland
So the people ethnically cleansed from their homes will rise up against NATO in
support of Russia. This is a seriously dumb idea.
Very few people in Russia would want Ukraine now. The consensus is: "good riddance". In
Ukraine, on the other hand, there are people who want Russia to invade. Some are waiting for
someone else to liberate them from Nazis (they apparently are not familiar with Protestant
wisdom that God helps those who help themselves), some pray for a pretext to invite NATO/US
(as if anyone is willing to die for them).
This reminds me of an old Russian joke.
An old hag sits on the bench and screams: "Help! They are raping me!"
Another one passes by and asks: "Have you gone completely mad?"
The first one answers: "Everyone is entitled to a pleasant dream!"
Don't worry about my IQ woes – they are non-existent. I am a stable genius –
just like Donald Trump. Your IQ issues are – on the other hand – very easy to
fix. All you have to do is admit that you are Russian and you immediately gain 20-30 IQ
points. Of course, this will come at the expense of Russia, but then again. everything you've
ever done in your history came at the expense of Russia. All the Russians ever wanted was to
have a brotherly nation in Ukraine. They have a brother all right, unfortunately that brother
has a Down syndrome.
Any Russian ruler who tries to return Crimea will be overthrown in no time. As Russia
gradually disengages from the US-dominated financial system, the costs will go down. Russia
has already created its own payment system similar to that of Visa and Mastercard, as well as
its own money transfer system similar to SWIFT. On the other hand, if Russia fails to
disengage from dollar-dominated system, the losses would be much greater than Crimea. It
might even turn into a shithole, like Ukraine.
Insurance is more often a scam than not: Lehman Brothers enjoyed pretty high ratings until
their crash. What's more, banks were insured against the risks of sub-prime mortgages they
held. Remember what happened in 2008?
As to the future, nobody has the crystal ball. Can you tell how much a Big Mac will cost
in the US five or ten years from now? $4? $40? $400? $4,000? Your guess is as good as mine.
Ponzi schemes have a habit of crashing and nobody worked out a way of predicting when exactly
the crash will occur.
This might be in the cards. The US sanctions actually squeezed Russian comprador (5th
column) oligarchs, who were always subservient to the West, sent their families there, and
are siphoning off their money offshore, more than anything. If Putin uses this to expropriate
their stolen riches, which he might do (98% of Russian population would be cheering; they'd
cheer even more if Putin hangs those bastards, but that's unlikely), these sanctions would be
yet another example of the US shooting itself in the foot. The US is getting pretty good at
that lately, always screaming that it hurts afterwards.
"... So will a good Christian like Mike Pompeo reconcile these obvious falsehoods, self deception. With every letter, he will be denying the very God he professes to believe in. ..."
"... Trump and his administration are the reveal of the true nature of modern American political Christianity. This is what it always was ..."
"... But The People are not exactly conscientious objector on the issue of Yemen and the crimes committed in our name either. The Republic might rot from the head, but the rot has certainly spread far and wide. ..."
A senior general urged Saudi officials to conduct a thorough investigation into an
airstrike that killed at least 40 children in Yemen, the Pentagon said Monday, an indication
of U.S. concern about allied nations' air operations against Houthi militants.
The general's request actually shows how little concern the U.S. has for how the Saudi
coalition conducts its war effort. If the U.S. were concerned with how the war was being
fought, our officials wouldn't be asking the perpetrators of atrocities to investigate their
own crimes. It is pointless to urge the Saudis to conduct an investigation into their own war
crime when we already know that they will find that they did nothing wrong. As the
Post article notes later on, the coalition's investigations predictably excuse their
actions:
According to Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch, Saudi
investigators had cleared coalition military officials of legal responsibility in virtually
all investigations the JIAT had conducted.
The pattern of Saudi coalition conduct over the last three years is clear. Their forces
commit numerous documented war crimes, and then when they "investigate" those crimes they
determine that their forces are guilty of nothing. It would have been laughable to ask the
Saudis to investigate themselves back in 2015, and to do the same over three years later is
inexcusable. It is an invitation to whitewashing heinous, illegal acts. The U.S. will not
honestly call out the coalition members for their crimes against Yemeni civilians because our
government is
deeply complicit in those crimes, and so we are treated to this pantomime farce where we
send officers to call for investigations whose results have been predetermined even before the
crimes were committed. The entire policy is a disgrace, and it brings dishonor on everyone
ordered to participate in it.
There needs to be an independent, international inquiry into war crimes committed by all
sides in Yemen. All parties to the conflict are assuredly guilty of war crimes, and all parties
should be held accountable for what they have done to Yemen's civilians. As long as the U.S.
enables Saudi coalition crimes and then shields them from scrutiny, our government is
implicated in both the crime and the cover-up. Congress could put a stop to this if they
were willing to do their jobs and assume their proper responsibilities, but for more than three
years they have shirked their duties and acquiesced in a despicable and indefensible policy in
Yemen.
"The entire policy is a disgrace, and it brings dishonor on everyone ordered to
participate in it."
For all that they're doing it at the order of even more disgusting civilians, this has got
a be a low point in the history of the American military. The word "Yemen" on a resume or CV
will make military people stink for the rest of their lives. Like "My Lai" or "Dishonorable
Discharge".
We are getting a preview of the letters Mike Pompeo will be signing off on to Congress.
So will a good Christian like Mike Pompeo reconcile these obvious falsehoods, self
deception. With every letter, he will be denying the very God he professes to believe
in.
"The entire policy is a disgrace, and it brings dishonor on everyone ordered to participate
in it."
Conduct unbecoming.
The higher the rank of the officers involving themselves in this – in following
unconstitutional orders to participate in an illegal campaign of aggressive war and
collective punishment – the worse it gets. It would be a heroic act for a private
– or even the officer piloting a refueling tanker – to speak out against this, a
general has much less of a claim to honor and acquiescence both.
If The People really supported those who serve, they would rally to every conscientious
objector – even the misguided ones – because anybody who has the honor and
integrity to question orders is preferable to those that pay no heed to the meaning of their
oath.
But The People are not exactly conscientious objector on the issue of Yemen and the
crimes committed in our name either. The Republic might rot from the head, but the rot has
certainly spread far and wide.
Here's the Video of Schoolchildren Just Moments Before Being Massacred by U.S.-Backed Saudi
Bombing
"This blood is on America's hands, as long as we keep sending the bombs that kill so many
Yemenis."
"... "Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so the need for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up collapsed." ..."
"... "Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia as its unfortunate stand-in." ..."
"... "In reality, Saudi Arabia's and the United States' rhetoric aside, a brutal regional regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global hemegon sponsoring it from abroad has ordered it to intervene directly and clean up its mess." ..."
"... Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying weapons but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the MIC. ..."
"... "Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so the need for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up collapsed." ..."
"... "By backing the Saudi coalition's war in Yemen with weapons, aerial refueling, and targeting assistance, the United States is complicit in the atrocities taking place there." -- Sen. Bernie Sanders ..."
ya right.
Like all wars, most media, including Common Dreams, either sugarcoat them or obfuscate the
real purpose. And of course the politicians do that even better, like Sanders, who just a few
years ago was begging Saudi Arabia to "get their hands dirty", just at the time that the U.S.
proxy war in Yemen heated up with their lapdog Saudi Arabia getting their hands dirty indeed.
The problem of course is that it's not just the U.S. supplying the bombs and military
guidance, it's that it's actually another U.S. proxy war using it's favorite terrorists and
terrorist supporting countries for it's imperialist agenda.
"Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda in
Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so the need
for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This
means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists they
were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up collapsed."
"Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per say,
but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia as its
unfortunate stand-in."
"In reality, Saudi Arabia's and the United States' rhetoric aside, a brutal regional
regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global hemegon sponsoring it from
abroad has ordered it to intervene directly and clean up its mess."
Actually it's larger than that, it's part of the larger imperialist struggle against China
and Russia, control of the Bab-el-Mandeb oil chokepoint and control of oil and other
resources in the MENA.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying weapons
but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the MIC.
@Big Al
don't get the why/when for if they
ever do amerika won't be amerika anymore
and that could go both ways, for better
or for worse
and you're correct in Sanders won't say
it but Bernie shouldn't be the one stop
cure all, their need to be many more voices
but the crickets are most abundant.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying weapons
but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the MIC.
ya right.
Like all wars, most media, including Common Dreams, either sugarcoat them or obfuscate
the real purpose. And of course the politicians do that even better, like Sanders, who
just a few years ago was begging Saudi Arabia to "get their hands dirty", just at the
time that the U.S. proxy war in Yemen heated up with their lapdog Saudi Arabia getting
their hands dirty indeed. The problem of course is that it's not just the U.S. supplying
the bombs and military guidance, it's that it's actually another U.S. proxy war using
it's favorite terrorists and terrorist supporting countries for it's imperialist
agenda.
"Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda
in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so
the need for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be
necessary. This means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after
the terrorists they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up
collapsed."
"Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per
say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia
as its unfortunate stand-in."
"In reality, Saudi Arabia's and the United States' rhetoric aside, a brutal regional
regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global hemegon sponsoring it from
abroad has ordered it to intervene directly and clean up its mess."
Actually it's larger than that, it's part of the larger imperialist struggle against
China and Russia, control of the Bab-el-Mandeb oil chokepoint and control of oil and
other resources in the MENA.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying
weapons but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the
MIC.
#4 don't get the
why/when for if they
ever do amerika won't be amerika anymore
and that could go both ways, for better
or for worse
and you're correct in Sanders won't say
it but Bernie shouldn't be the one stop
cure all, their need to be many more voices
but the crickets are most abundant.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying
weapons but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the
MIC.
(the other so called progressive heroes) are saying,
"By backing the Saudi coalition's war in Yemen with weapons, aerial refueling, and
targeting assistance, the United States is complicit in the atrocities taking place
there."
-- Sen. Bernie Sanders
is basically propaganda. Clearly he's making it sound like the U.S. is supplying weapons
and some military assistance and therefore is complicit in the atrocities that Saudi Arabia
and it's "coalition" are perpetrating in "their" war, which in turn leads people to believe
(and the progressive hero politicians to propose) the U.S. simply needs to stop supplying
those weapons and military assistance, i.e., get out of Saudi's war. But that misses the
history of U.S. interest and involvement in Yemen, it's real role in the near genocide
happening there and the overall agenda of those controlling our government. And that is why
most Americans, including most progressives, don't know what is really going on in Yemen. Our
political "representatives" and the 90% owned by six rich bastard corporations oligarchy
media won't tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's why people still
believe the war in Syria is a civil war. It's why people believe the Russia cold war
propaganda. That's all they hear and the only way to get the real truth is to dig for it and
try to make sense of the big picture along with the true history of this country and our
government and political system.
Not to mention he's a fucking hypocrite.
"Even worse, after the Saudis started bombing Yemen with U.S. government backing earlier
this year, killing thousands and leading to what the UN is now calling a "humanitarian
catastrophe," and suffering that is "almost incomprehensible," Sanders continued. In another
interview, again with Wolf Blitzer in May, Sanders did correctly note that as a result of the
Iraq invasion, "we've destabilized the region, we've given rise to Al-Qaeda, ISIS." But then
he actually called for more intervention: "What we need now, and this is not easy stuff, I
think the President is trying, you need to bring together an international coalition, Wolf,
led by the Muslim countries themselves! Saudi Arabia is the third largest military budget in
the world, they're going to have to get their hands dirty in this fight. We should be
supporting, but at the end of the day this is [a] fight over what Islam is about, the soul of
Islam, we should support those countries taking on ISIS."
(Note on Truthdig article: also propaganda inserted by both Sanders and the author by
insinuating the U.S. wars in the MENA "gave rise" to ISIS. That is not true, ISIS was
created, aided and abetted FOR the wars in the MENA and beyond.)
"... "The currency of our country is targeted directly by the US president," ..."
"... "This attack, initiated by the biggest player in the global financial system, reveals a similar situation in all developing countries." ..."
"... "All of our action plan and measures are ready," ..."
"... "Together with our banks, we prepared our action plan regarding the situation with our real sector companies, including Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is the sector that is affected by the fluctuation the most," ..."
"... "Together with our banks and the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA), we will take the necessary measures quickly." ..."
"... "It is making an operation against Turkey Its aim is to force Turkey to surrender in every field from finance to politics, to make Turkey and the Turkish nation kneel down," ..."
"... "We have seen your play and we challenge you." ..."
Turkey has accused Donald Trump of leading an attack on its national currency. The lira lost
about 40 percent of its value against the US dollar this year and, to reduce its volatility,
Ankara has prepared an urgent action plan. "The currency of our country is targeted
directly by the US president," Finance Minister Berat Albayrak told the Hurriyet.
"This attack, initiated by the biggest player in the global financial system, reveals a
similar situation in all developing countries."
The Turkish lira took a massive hit against the dollar on Friday following Trump's decision
to double tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey to 20 percent and 50 percent.
Overall, the national currency lost roughly about 40 percent of its value this year.
To calm down the markets, the government instructed its institutions to implement a series
of actions on Monday. "All of our action plan and measures are ready," Albayrak said,
without elaborating.
"Together with our banks, we prepared our action plan regarding the situation with our
real sector companies, including Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is the sector
that is affected by the fluctuation the most," the minister
said . "Together with our banks and the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency
(BRSA), we will take the necessary measures quickly."
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile slammed the US decision to impose new tariffs on
steel and aluminum imports.
"It is making an operation against Turkey Its aim is to force Turkey to surrender in
every field from finance to politics, to make Turkey and the Turkish nation kneel down,"
Erdogan said
in Trabzon on Sunday. "We have seen your play and we challenge you."
"... Coalition attacks on Yemeni markets are unfortunately all too common. The Saudis and their allies know they can strike civilian targets with impunity because the Western governments that arm and support them never call them out for what they do. ..."
There was another Saudi coalition airstrike on a
crowded market in northern Yemen today. Dozens of civilians have been killed and dozens more
injured. Many of the dead and injured were children whose school bus was hit in the attack:
Coalition attacks on Yemeni
markets are unfortunately all too common. The Saudis and their allies know they can strike
civilian targets with impunity because the Western governments that arm and support them never
call them out for what they do. The U.S. continues to arm and refuel coalition planes
despite ample evidence that the coalition has been deliberately attacking civilian targets. At
the very least, the coalition hits civilian targets with such regularity that they are
ignoring whatever
procedures they are supposed to be following to prevent that. The weapons that the U.S.,
Britain, and other arms suppliers provide them are being used to slaughter wedding-goers,
hospital patients, and schoolchildren, and U.S. refueling of coalition planes allows them to
carry out more of these attacks than they otherwise could. Today's attack ranks as one of the
worst.
Saada has come under some of the most intense attacks from the coalition bombing campaign.
The coalition illegally
declared the entire area a military target three years ago, and ever since they have been
blowing up
homes ,
markets ,
schools ,
water treatment systems, and
hospitals without any regard for the innocent civilians that are killed and injured.
The official U.S. line on support for the war is that even more civilians would be killed if
the U.S. weren't supporting the coalition. Our government has never provided any evidence to
support this, and the record shows that civilian casualties from Saudi coalition airstrikes
have
increased over the last year. The Saudis and their allies either don't listen to any of the
advice they're receiving, or they know they won't pay any price for ignoring it. As long as the
U.S. arms and refuels coalition planes while they slaughter Yemeni civilians in attacks like
this one, our government is implicated in the war crimes enabled by our unstinting military
assistance. Congress can and must halt that assistance immediately.
Update: CNN reports on the
aftermath of the airstrike:
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said that a hospital it supports in
Saada had received 29 dead bodies of "mainly children" under 15 years of age, and 40 injured,
including 30 children.
"(The hospital) is very busy. They've been receiving wounded and dead since the morning
and it is non-stop ," ICRC head of communications and spokesperson Mirella Hodeib told
CNN.
Second Update: The Associated Press
reports that the death toll stands at 43 with another 63 injured.
Third Update: The death toll has reportedly risen to 50 . 77 were
injured.
Of course I have no right to surprise or shock. They've already targeted hospitals,
foreign doctors and nurses, first responders, wedding parties, and funerals.
School buses.
We used to make movies about killing people who do things like this. Now we help them do
it.
The repetitive frequency and intensity of these attacks on hospitals, schools, markets and
other civilian gatherings, coupled with the indifference of the guilty national governments
and their international enablers, signals that the world and human species is passing through
a mass psychosis. This psychosis is playing itself out at all levels. Fascism, which is very
current as a national psychology, is generally speaking, a coping strategy for dealing with
nasty chaos. This coping strategy is designed around generating even more chaos, since that
is a familiar and therefore more comfortable pattern of behavior; and that does provide a
delusion of stability. A good example would be the sanctions just declared by the Trump
Administration on Iranian commerce. In an intrinsically connected global market, these
sanctions are so thorough that they qualify as a blockade, within a contingency plan for
greater global conflict. But those who destroy hospitals, schools, school buses and public
celebrations are not, otherwise, forward looking nice people. We are descending into a nasty
fascist war psychosis. Just shake it. Live. Long and well.
"even more civilians would be killed if the U.S. weren't supporting the coalition"
If we did not hand them satellite images, did not service, repair and refuel their planes,
and did not sell them the bombs, then they would . kill more civilians how? They could not
even reach their targets, let alone drop explosives they do not have.
What Would Mohammad Do? Buy bombs from the Russians? Who have better quality control and
fewer duds, hence more victims?
What Would Mohammad Do? Get the UAE to hire Blackwater to poison the wells across
Yemen?
How exactly do the profiteers in our country, that get counted out blood money for every
single Yemeni killed, propose that the Saudis and Emiratis would make this worse?
But, good to know that our "smart" and "precise" munitions can still hit a school bus.
Made In America!
The coverage in the media has been predictably cowardly and contemptible in the aftermath of
this story. I read articles from CNN and MSNBC and they were variations on "school bus
bombed", in the passive tense – with no mention of who did it or who is supporting them
in the headline, ad if the bombings were natural disasters.
Fox, predictably, was even worse and led with "Biblical relics endangered by war", which
speaks volumes about the presumed priorities of their viewership.
This, and not anything to do with red meat domestic politics, is the worst media
malpractice of our time. "Stop directly helping the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks drop
bombs on school children" should be the absolute easiest possible moral issue for our media
to take a stand on and yet they treat it like it's radioactive.
Speaking as someone who considers themselves a liberal I am infuriated by the Democrats
response. How can the party leadership not see that if they keep flogging the horse of
Russian trolls and shrugging their shoulders over American given (not sold – *given*)
bombs being dropped on schools and hospitals, no one is ever going to take the supposed
Democratic anti-war platform seriously again. The Republicans can afford to be tarde by
association with these atrocities. The Democrats can't.
I wonder how many Democrats are in the same boat as me right now: I may not like Trump or
the Christian conservatives but fights over the Supreme Court or coal plants or a healthcare
law look terribly petty compared to the apparent decision by Saudi Arabia to kill literally
millions. For the first time in my life I'm seriously wishing there was a third-party
candidate I could support and the congressional elections just so I could send a message on
this.
@Hunter C
Vote Libertarian Party. You won't agree with a lot of their domestic agenda, but they're not
going to win, so it doesn't matter. The noninterventionist foreign policy is your message.
"Following an attack this morning on a bus driving children in Dahyan Market, northern
Saada, (an ICRC-supported) hospital has received dozens of dead and wounded," the
organisation said on Twitter without giving more details.
In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the coalition called the strike
a "legitimate military action"
The Comment section:
"The US provides the in-flight refueling that makes these bombing sorties possible. The
"Five Eyes" provides the surveillance that picks the targets, and the navigation to hit
them.
KSA is doing precisely what the AZ Empire requires of it. Just as the British Royals and
their banker sponsors dictated over a century ago, so does the Empire direct these heinous
crimes today.
If the Saud Royals ever did go "rogue," they'd be taken out just as the AZ [American
Zionist] Empire has done time and time again."
"There is also the documented presence of American forces and officers in the operations room
of the Saudi coalition." https://twitter.com/abcdaee198/status/1027649243568386055
"Why is it that the Zionist media were up in arms every time White Helmets were digging
Syrian children out of rubble or dousing them with hoses? Dozens of children were slaughtered
in Yemen, and many more maimed and injured and hundreds of thousands are being subjected to
famine but there's only deafening silence on the Zionist-run media."
"Imagine the reaction if the Russians or Syrians had blown up a busload of kids."
-- On the same topic: Israel demanded -- and BBC changed its headline. In a headline, BBC
claimed that "Israeli air strikes 'kill pregnant woman and baby.'" After some time, BBC
changed its title to "Gaza air strikes 'kill woman and child' after rockets hit Israel:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/250275
Obama spoke about mothers sending their children to school in his acceptance speech for
the
Nobel Peace Prize.
He contrasted reality vs hope
and we learned which one he would deliver.
Obama in Oslo, December 10, 2009,:
"Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty
still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what
few coins she has to send that child to school
-- because she believes that
a cruel world still
has a place for that child's dreams.
Let us live by their example.
We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us,
and still strive for justice .
We can admit the intractability of deprivation,
and still strive for dignity.
Clear-eyed,
we can understand that there will be war,
and still strive for peace.
We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the
hope
of all the world; and at this moment of challenge,
that must be our work here on Earth.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
One week later Obama shredded dozens of women and children in Yemen
and covered it up.
I've written many times Obama was Bush II - BUT F...KING TRUMP IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE NOW!
So why are you giving us the ancient history deflection???????????
The pic provides an example of how the Outlaw US Empire implements its global population
control policy--all bombs, no kids. Twitterverse is madder than a wet hen. One went to
Trump's twitter to ask where's his outrage over these kid's real deaths, not the staged ones
he launched missiles at Syria over. It deserves to be retweeted millions of times.
Unfortunately, sadists are incapable of being shamed; they just grin at such pics while
congratulating themselves. Betcha the Trump dossier got it backwards--It was Trump who pissed
all over the Russian women.
Almasdarnews. Com. Are reporting a massive Israile army convoy heading for Gaza bigger than
enything seen since 2014 ! This looks serious ! The whole dam world picture is looking way
beyond serious !!!
kudos the exceptional nation in support of those other exceptional nations - ksa and
israel...
everyone else on the planet want to know when this horror will end...
Ahh, thats why. The Saudis are incompetent and vile, but trust the us to be
even more incompetent and even more vile and putrid.
This is horrible! I see it and can not really do much. It is a never ending story of innocent
people being killed off. But it does nurture a solid and hot hate to those people who are
architects of this. They feel safe and secured, but they are sitting on a volcano, and when it
goes, they will go too. Maybe a Gadaffi end.
Posted by: Den Lille Abe , Aug 9, 2018 4:42:25 PM |
13
Ahh, thats why. The Saudis are incompetent and vile, but trust the us to be even more
incompetent and even more vile and putrid.
This is horrible! I see it and can not really do much. It is a never ending story of innocent
people being killed off. But it does nurture a solid and hot hate to those people who are
architects of this. They feel safe and secured, but they are sitting on a volcano, and when
it goes, they will go too. Maybe a Gadaffi end.
Posted by: Den Lille Abe | Aug 9, 2018 4:42:25 PM |
13 /div
Hate is a hefty spice; it can make you blind to reason, it can make you oblivious to truth,
and make you inoculated against love. But hate controlled, is also a drug that is powerful
and useful, hate nurtured and fed can move mountains and empires. Hate is good in manageable
doses and wrecking in large ones. But take it at own risk.
They are claiming these are legitimate military targets, they targeted 'militants', the
Houthis use 'child soldiers', and use human shields. I bet Nikki Haley still thinks they are
the most wonderful people ever, on the front lines, fighting against the real monsters,
Iran.
What's that supposed to mean??? Trump is President! Aren't you excusing Trump by dredging
up Obama's shet? That excuse not to criticize Trump is getting real old.
@15 Nah, Christian, you are clearly wrong. Nikki would consider KSA to have the 2nd most
wonderful people ever, with the USA holding the Bronze Medal position. There is no doubt who
she holds as The Chosen People.
Don't let this stuff get normalised ! That's why they do it in plain site. It desensitises
the dumb public
i e trump supporters in u s, torys in uk. We should be feeling outrage and hatered towards
the people that
do this . Including our own governments.
No one is excusing Trump. The point that needs to be emphasized is that the War Party has
two wings: repubs and dems. Every last president since WWII has put the interests of imperial
conquest over the interests of the American people. Bill Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump
(as well as all of their wannabes Gore, Kerry, McCain HRC) were and are war mongers. They are
united in their lust for killing children (don't forget Madeline Albright with her "it was
worth it" over the 500,000 babies Clinton killed through sanctions).
This evening #switch off bbc is trending number one on Twitter and number four world wide!
Time we all pushback. on the net,on the streets, everywhere we can.no justice no peace !
Mark2 opines It desensitises the dumb public i e trump supporters
Are you serious? You should listen to my college educated colleagues (more than half with
professional degrees) most of whom are democrats and not one who voted for Trump. When it
comes to war against Syria, Libya, threats against Russia they are true blooded war mongers.
Actually worse than Trump supporters because they in general oppose those wars or war
threats.
Toivos @ 23
Dumb is as dumb does! They come in all shapes sizes and political party's . Trumps a greedy
pig puts children in cages and is a kkk racist don't make excuses he's a monster full
stop!
Don't give me eny of that o but, o but blah blah.!!!
It already is normalized. Go look at many of the comments on MSM (left and right) and so
called progressive sites. Hopefully those are all astroturfers but I suspect many are real
folks. Its luny tunes. They live in the Matrix and are blissfully unaware. Like something out
of 1984 during the 2 minute hate but its 24/7 , or maybe walking dead if the WD could type or
talk.
Another sterling example of how the US teaches its allies to be incompetent, vicious and
cowardly in targeting and killing those least able to fight back.
O Canada! Recently, I praised them as "New Trumpland". But why did they forget that silence
can be golden? Apparently, it dawned on PM that his party is called "liberal" and thus it
must make "liberal calls"*. But what cause should be selected? Massacres and starvation of
cute emaciated children? Conservative predecessor of current PM got ca. 7 G USD contract for
"vehicles" (motorized infantly?) for KSA, and Trudeau will not endanger precious Canadian
jobs. After leaving the task to the Foreign Minister (Freedland, Feminazi**), the plight of
women right activists in KSA with family members in Canada.
Canada cannot yield to Saudi Arabia's deranged overreaction
The regime's reaction to a couple of tweets is more about snuffing out its own country's
voices of dissent
Iyad El-Baghdadi, Amarnath Amarasingam · for CBC News · Posted: Aug 09, 2018
4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: August 9
If Canada folds, some fear that a line would be drawn in the sand, and behind that line,
petty Arab dictators could do what they want with their activist communities, without as much
as a complaint from the world. (Cliff Owen/Associated Press)
=====
Of course Canada cannot yield. For starters, it is unclear what would appease the irate
Crown Prince. Perhaps Trudeau and Friedland coming together to KSA to submit to a public
flogging. But judging from the titles I have seen, Canadians cherish "delicate balance", and
they though that an occasional complaint that is not 100% aligned with USA and principal
customers of Canadian products should be safe.
Agreed. When it comes to knowing the Truth of the Outlaw US Empire's overseas deeds, most
people are illiterate/ignorant. They hang the flag aside their front porch and feel
righteous. The only reason we don't have multitudes of people saluting whoever's POTUS and
chanting Sieg Heil is because in the back of their tiny minds they somehow know that's
incorrect behavior but don't know why. Some provided feedback on Michael Hudson's going
autobiographical saying his upbringing seemed unreal--faked--thus showing how little they
know of WW2 Home Front US history when people were much more informed and politically
savvy.
It seems safe to say that Animal Farm & 1984 have both put down
extensive roots within the Outlaw US Empire to the point where digging up and destroying
those weeds will cause major social damage. Can't make an omelet without breaking eggs is how
the saying goes. But a positive outcome isn't the only possibility.
We need to remember this' the about left or right ! That's just devide and rule. This about
the 1% killing off the 99%
Agend 21.what they are doing to Yemen people now they will do to you next.
The deliberate targeting of civilians is Outlaw US Empire policy since WW2 despite it
being a War Crime. Guernica was an outrage, but Powell had it covered up since spoke directly
to US actions since the paint dried in 1937. The School Bus was yet another of all too many
Guernicas that have occurred since. Someone mentioned desensitized. Yes, on an International
Scale. It was an act of Terror, but how many are describing it as such? BigLie Media? Not a
chance if they show/mention it at all.
I'm not sure we should generalize about Canadians. Trudeau is trying to satisfy his base
and presumably staying true to his own liberal convictions. But I've met Canadians who
dislike him intensely. They do not think gender politics, welcoming refugees, settling native
land claims, lecturing Saudi Arabia etc. is the best way to maintain a high standard of
living.
Israel demanded - and BBC changed its headline. In a headline, BBC claimed that "Israeli air
strikes 'kill pregnant woman and baby.'" After some time, BBC changed its title to "Gaza air
strikes 'kill woman and child' after rockets hit Israel https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/250275
A good comment from HistoryHacker (Guardian web page), I thought I share it:
"Let's see: in 1913 the British grabbed Iranian oil and made it their property. Six
years later, Britain imposed another agreement and took over Iran's treasury and the army.
During the Second World War, Britain's requisitioning of food led to famine and widespread
disease. Shortly after that war, Iran's own efforts to establish its nascent democracy and
nationalize the oil industry were thwarted. And by whom? Eisenhower joined the systematic
British looting, and, sadly, by 1953, the blossoming Iranian democracy was completely
destroyed by the covert operation of the American CIA and British MI6, known as Operation
Ajax. In place of the democracy was installed Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a US-British puppet, a
despot deeply hated by his own people.
America picked up the baton, and here's Trump going bat crazy!
What could Iranians possibly think?! What do you think?"
@36 I knew that PB. Excuse my inadequate attempt to emulate your tone.
But I think it's true that Canadians enjoy a high standard of living mainly because of
things like water, oil, minerals, wheat, lumber etc. and most prefer not to get involved in
Saudi Arabian politics.
I hope that Canada will finally lead heavy public condemnation of the Saudi-UAE coalition
murderous actions in Yemen. Canada has nothing to loose anymore, it is high time it take a
serious stand on the 3 years human rights abuse of the Yemenis.
It should indirectly send a dissaproval message to the USA on its complicity in these war
crimes...
Maybe it is time for Canada, to reinstate diplomatic relation with Iran to snub the Saudis
and the USA, but I am dreaming...
.
"But I think it's true that Canadians enjoy a high standard of living mainly because of
things like water, oil, minerals, wheat, lumber etc. "
Not quite. It's because of water, oil, minerals, wheat lumber, etc., AND they don't breed
like rodents.
India has plenty of resources - adjusting for the cold climate in Canada, probably about
as much as Canada, effectively. It's just that these resources don't go that far split up 1.4
billion ways and counting.
And Yemen? With very little water, and one of the highest fertility rates in the world,
what do you expect?
What to make of the new sanctions put in place by the State Dept against Russia?
What about those on Iran?
Are these implemented to generate WAR?
Whether it be against Russia, Iran or China, The US attitude is orchestrated by
Zion/Israel.
Why deal with the US when Israel is the culprit?
Wiping out Israel is the solution. Obliterating Israel will certainly ease
the World's woes.
Of course, targeted assassinations should be carried out.
Short of this, Netanyahu should be kept waiting for days whitout being able
to meet Putin. His ambassador should be expelled and the Russian Ambassador to Israel
recalled.
Sanction Israel in every way possible. Break the Gaza Siege. Wipe out Israel's
Navy. Down its jets over Lebanon. Kill its Jericho rockets at lift off.
There is also the documented presence of American forces and officers in the operations
room of the Saudi coalition....These guys have not been sent there by Obama...I guess....
But what most makes me feel sick is not that American commenters out there, well payed or
volunteer, insist after two years already on this cantinele, what takes me out of my nerves
is that the Russians insist...in throwing balls out with certain issues....
But what could have really happened? Just yesterday or the day before I was reading that
Israel and Hamas were in negotiations...From that to this...I wonder what could be the
breaking point...
Talks
were a ruse as usual . Supposedly, a cease fire was in place but was broken as reported
at the link. Ongoing protests against the "Nationality Law" continue and go unreported as
usual. The continuing murder of Gazans serves as cover.
@37, "But I think it's true that Canadians enjoy a high standard of living mainly because of
things like water, oil, minerals, wheat, lumber etc. and most prefer not to get involved in
Saudi Arabian politics."
As a lifelong Canuckistani, my view is that Canada is the world's largest mine - and it is
not mine.
@45 But I understand it's not as easy to get mining permits as it used to be. Lot of
environmentalists and first nations lawyers involved. Which is why Canadian mining companies
move to Africa.
the USA will perhaps suffer blowback, both at home and in many places 'strategic' to its
Empire, for generation or two to come, for all the horrible and savage war crimes perpetuated
by it and its allies on the poor people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia,
Palestine, and especially now Yemen, the poorest of the poor - the sorrows of Empire
The US provides the in-flight refueling that makes these bombing sorties possible. The "Five
Eyes" provides the surveillance that picks the targets, and the navigation to hit them.
KSA is doing precisely what the AZ Empire requires of it. Just as the British Royals and
their banker sponsors dictated over a century ago, so does the Empire direct these heinous
crimes today.
If the Saud Royals ever did go "rogue," they'd be taken out just as the AZ Empire has done
time and time again.
CarlD, the purpose of sanctions is to hurt the citizens of a country enough that they will
rise up and revolt against their ruling class.
The AZ Empire has been striving for complete global dominance for a long time, and that
means either destroying Russia and China or at least installing "friendly" governments.
Hence, sanctions, "trade wars," and infiltration to foment "color revolutions."
Pence's new Space Command is a blatant telltale that the twice-hacked and never-audited
Pentagon has a massive hemorrhage of funds and Trump will be demanding ANOTHER $40B budget
increase for Pentagon to paper over a huge Deep Purple Hole in the Bucket.
So Saudis sanction Canada but will still let the oil flow to them (2billion a year) and the
US sanctions Russia but will still buy space rockets from them , and they will still sell
them to us. Trade war with China but they still buy US Treasuries to finance US debt. British
owned BBC rents out their studios to RT to help Russia with their propaganda
Woodrow Wilson : "Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me
privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and
manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized,
so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak
above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
Today some call them ruling or power elites, global elites for the most part. Elites is an
interesting word whose origins come from the french word for chosen and latin word for
elect.
1. Wealth from natural resources. This is a bit of mixed blessing, because with some
exceptions, mining is very capital intensive, so the profit margins are so-so, and job
creation is also so-so. Canada is blessed with nice mix of extracting industries,
agriculture, "normal" manufacturing, financial centers etc. They also have somewhat
reasonable spending in terms value for money in health and military sectors, saving ca. 10%
of GDP between the two compared with the less rational southern neighbor Perhaps this is
still short of 10%, but USA also wastes money and human resources on prison complex and other
inanities.
2. Liberal Canada. Domestically, I do not know enough, but "harmonizing with USA" could
please some conservatives while being too expensive to implement. On foreign policy they
stick to the worst of liberalism, not standing much for anything, even for their beloved
Vilna Ukrayina, although converting Ukraine to land of milk and honey with capable military
and a reasonable level of corruption is beyond capacity of any foreign power. But they
implemented what used to be totally unjustifiable insult, "feminazi". That said,
conservatives learned from Trump to raise mind boggling issue and gain in polls, lately, how
to stop hordes of "deplorables" crossing the border. I guess a cheapish solution would be to
create a network of recreational trails with very confusing mapping (even GPS) and totally
confusing signage, and plant some smilax = green briar or other thorny plants to impede
hiking according to compass directions. A note on GPS maps based on satellite pictures:
software has very hard time telling dead ends from actually passable trail connections.
3. Populist-progressive Canada of my dreams. Declare the conflicts with KSA and Trump to
be matters of national dignity, punish KSA by stopping delivery of military vehicles per
Harper's contract and purchases of oil, replace the latter with Iranian. Would Trump dare to
impose secondary sanctions, fine American companies in Canada.
Why is it that the Zionist media were up in arms every time White Helmets were digging Syrian
children out of rubble or dousing them with hoses?
Dozens of children were slaughtered in Yemen, and many more maimed and injured and
hundreds of thousands are being subjected to famine but there's only deafening silence on the
Zionist-run media.
Syrian children had propaganda value; Yemeni children have no value at all. Americans,
Zionists and Saudis are sick and depraved.
A little correction to Circe, Aug 9 11:18:38 PM. SELECTED Syrian children were newsworthy, a
recent massacre by ISIS in Sweida was newsworthy only as an example of a failure by "the
regime". An earlier example, when majority of people of Greater Aleppo lived in the western
part controlled by Damascus, "Aleppo" meant only the eastern part, controlled by the
"moderate" rebels, and victims of moderate massacres and shelling were totally un-newsworthy.
Natural resources drive 20 per cent of the economy -- and about 10 per cent of all the
jobs in Canada. These natural resources also help Canada attract manufacturing and value
added business that utilize domestically produced metals, fuel and timber (as opposed to more
expensive imports) Profit motive is overstated, large companies are focused more on income
growth and market share. The jobs that are produced are good paying jobs as well
I'd rather have more good paying capital intensive industries than low pay labour
intensive service and manufacturing industries that may generate more profits but which end
up mostly in CEO and top managements bank accounts
Frankly, the mystery is why America has not invaded Canada and taken over since we last
tried in 1812. :>)
Mark2 @ 31 said:"We need to remember this' the about left or right ! That's just devide and
rule. This about the 1% killing off the 99% "
Yep, bottom line statement. From austerity to all neoliberal policies, and the world-wide
wars now going on, are basically nothing more than class warfare directed at the 99% to
enrich the already rich.
Frankly, the mystery is why America has not invaded Canada and taken over since we last tried
in 1812. :>)
Posted by: Pft | Aug 10, 2018 12:06:44 AM | 61
Absorbing Canada could undermine political balance in USA leading to such calamities like
socialized medicine, legal marijuana etc. Keeping them on Puerto Rico status is not tenable
given the ethnic composition -- too many English speaking whites. If we could just annex
Alberta...
Bang on cue, TG @ 39 uses a comment about Canada's standard of living (brought about in part
by its governments' spending on transport infrastructure - in particular, transcontinental
railways - that stimulated job growth and enabled the agricultural and manufactured wealth of
the provinces to be spread across the nation and to be exported overseas) to push a racist
opinion about how poor countries are at fault for being poor because their people don't have
access to birth control measures made in rich countries.
...
..for all the horrible and savage war crimes perpetuated by it and its allies on the poor
people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, and especially now Yemen, the
poorest of the poor - the sorrows of Empire.
Posted by: michaelj72 | Aug 9, 2018 9:12:39 PM | 47
White man's burden...
A phrase used to justify European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries; it is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The phrase implies that imperialism
was motivated by a high-minded desire of whites to uplift people of color.
Part of the targeting assurance happens by looking at unexpected "gaps" in electronic
communication signals. When there is a lot of cellphone communication noise" where is is
suddenly absent, despite presence of humans, indicated an interesting anomaly for target
acquisitions.
To confuse the enemy, these "silent spots" should be mirrored in different locations. They
counter The selectief bias.
During WWII, RAF lost planes to German AAA. They wondered where armor them up?
Counterintuitively, the mathematician Abraham Wald explained that, if a plane makes it back
safely despite a bunch of bullet holes in its wings, it means that bullet holes in the wings
aren't very dangerous.
Where you really need the armor, are the areas that, on average, don't have any bullet
holes.
Why? Because planes with bullet holes in those places never made it back. That's why you
don't see any bullet holes there on the ones that do return.
Posted by: CarlD @ 51 "And who is behind all of this?"
Wouldn't you agree that the PTSB are, as Paul Simon wrote, A Loose Affiliation of
Billionaires?
The way I see it, the pinnacle of the pyramid are members of the dynasties that have
controlled the finance system for centuries. Rothschilds, Warburgs, the Vatican, the European
Royal Families and such. They profit off of everything, since all revenues generated by all
industries pass through their sticky fingers, in addition to their Central Banking cabal that
almost every country on earth is fully beholden to.
They are not a monolith, in that they compete with one another, but they all share
interest in keeping this system in place.
Then, at the next level down there are the members of the Nouveau Riche, like the
Rockefellers and Carneigies whose wealth was only generated a couple generations ago, and the
even newer rich who do not have dynastic power (yet), but do wield enough wealth to influence
the actions of the Empire, like the MIC "Daddy Warbucks" and tech industry newcomers.
And of course, there are the upper-level managers of Empire like Kissinger, Brzezenski,
Soros, etc.
We have seen images of dead children of warfare before. I am not sure if it helps the antiwar
cause. I will have to go read Susan Sontag's "The Pain of Others." In any case, thanks for
posting it, b.
Will DJT order a retaliatory strike on KSA after being so moved by these photos like he
was when the children of the fake gas attacks in Syria were being paraded around on the msm?
I think not. Sad!
Posted by: Pft | Aug 10, 2018 12:06:44 AM | 61:
"Frankly, the mystery is why America has not invaded Canada and taken over since we last
tried in 1812. :>)"
Canada and the US are both members of the Five Eyes. Clearly, their roles in the great
chessboard are different. But the way I see it, the nation-states are fictions that serve the
charade of representative democratic self-rule.
"... A good hypothesis is, that Olof Palme was assassinated by a US stay-behind group, consisting of Nazi military and police. ..."
"... I think VG is quite correct in this: it was a test. And the test was of the neocon/humanitarian intervention marriage. Yes, the USA has doe a lot of this sort of thing in its history, but there has always been some opposition inside the USA. This time, they figured it out and "humanitarian bombing" was born. We have seen a lot more humanitarian bombing since. ..."
"... It was Gore, in consultation with Hillary Clinton, who decided to launch the criminal bombing of Serbia, informing PM Primakov after taking a phone call meant for the president. ..."
"... By launching an illegal attack on Russia's ally, the VP and the future Sec. of State, were offering a foreshadowing of the hawkish and belligerent anti-Russian policy that was to follow for the next 17 years. ..."
"... Western populations for the most part are so thoroughly brainwashed they still cling to the belief they live in civilized countries and their militaries keep them safe from barbarians. ..."
"... Gary I agree whole heartedly with every word you wrote. I would add to how intriguing it would be to learn of the high deception played during the passage of the Federal Reserve back in 1913. Then I'd push out of the way those who blocked Claude Pepper from endorsing Henry Wallace into the 1944 Democratic Convention. This alone may have changed the course of the establishment of the CIA, and avoided the disaster that is happening in Palestine to this day. ..."
"... I do believe the assassination era was the biggest turning point, as it sent a strong message to the would be seekers of sane government policies who would incur such tragedy if explored. Joe ..."
"... I believe there are many questions that need answering about NATO. For instance: July 14, 2018 The Diabolical "Work" of NATO and Its Allies: Why Are These War Criminals Still Free? ..."
By Vladimir Golstein in Belgrade Special to Consortium News
Right across the street from my hotel,
tucked behind tall office buildings, is the rather large Church of St. Mark. Hidden in St.
Mark's shadows is a tiny Russian Orthodox church. The Church of the Holy Trinity, known simply
as the Russian Church, is famous for holding the remains of Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel ,
the Russian Civil War leader of the Whites. It is hard to find, but luckily, a friend took me
there.
As we were looking around the church, not particularly interested in Wrangel, a couple of
Russians asked me to take their picture in front of his tomb. Trying to find a proper angle for
the picture, I noticed a small plaque on a wall nearby. It listed the names of Russians who
died fighting for Yugoslav Serbs during the conflict with separatist Albanians in Kosovo and
the subsequent NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in
1999.
As we left the church, we took a small path toward the top of the park. There we observed
another brutal sign of that war: a destroyed building next to the TV center. It too had a
plaque. It screamed, " Zashto " (For What? Why?). Below it were the names of all the TV
people NATO killed during that attack. In all, as many as 2,500 civilians may have been killed
by NATO, according to the then Yugoslav government, though the real number may never
be known.
On the one hand, the question Zashto is both idle and provocative. It implies a
laceration of wounds, a refusal to forget and to start anew. On the other, there is an obvious
need to find an answer to this question simply to prevent future destruction and senseless
murders.
We won't find answers to this question in the official narratives, which tell us that the
noble Clinton administration decided to stop flagrant violations of human rights in the
extremely complex situation in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo by bombing
the Serbs into respecting minorities both on its own and on neighboring territories. (In fact
the large exodus of Kosovo Albanians to Albania proper only began after NATO bombs started to
fall.)
Testing the Limits
Russians who died fighting for Yugoslavia. (Photo by Vladimir Golstein)
Behind these official stories, a much sadder picture emerges. Why did these people die? Why
did this NATO operation go ahead without UN Security Council authorization
nor proof of self-defense, requirements of the UN Charter? Was it to satisfy the lust for power
of U.S. and NATO leaders, of liberal interventionists like Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton,
and Susan Rice? To assuage the Clinton administration's guilt over its failure to respond to the 1994 genocide
in Rwanda? Was it to set up America's largest military base in Europe since the
Vietnam War, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo? For American access to Kosovo's vast mineral wealth and
other business opportunities, including for
Ms. Albright ? Or was it to finally kill off a rather successful Yugoslav experiment in the
"third way" between the West and the Soviet Union?
It seems these people had to die for all those reasons and to put into practice the
doctrines of responsibility to protect ( R2P ) and
full spectrum dominance , doctrines cooked up by liberal interventionists and neocons in
Washington. Those who died were essentially guinea pigs of a New World Order experiment to see
how far the world could be pushed to implement R2P, a policy that could be used to mask
imperial ambitions.
And it worked. Yugoslavia was unable to stand up to the power of NATO operating outside the
mandate of its obsolete charter: namely to defend Western Europe against an alleged Soviet
threat. Indeed one could argue that with the Cold War over, another motive for the attack on
Yugoslavia was to provide NATO with a justification to exist. (It would later go even further
afield outside its legal theater of operation, into Afghanistan and then Libya.)
Russia could do little to help the Serbs. Then the Chinese Embassy was hit
as well, as a test it seems, though The New York Timessaid
it was a mistake. The Chinese did nothing.
Thus was R2P implemented -- with no protection for Yugoslav Serbs. They had to die in the
experiment to explore the limits of U.S. power and the limits of its resistance.
If my memory serves me correctly, President Bill Clinton had set up a summit meeting with
Russian President Yevgeny Primakov here in the USA. Primakov was in flight on his way here
for that summit meeting when President of Vice, Al Gore, without Clinton's permission or
knowledge, called Primakov, in flight, to tell him NATO had decided to bomb Kosovo. Primakov immediately ordered his plane to
turn around and return to Russia, thus cancelling the summit meeting...
Aurora , August 7, 2018 at 8:55 pm
In Russia that is known as "The Primakov Loop."
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Thanks Vladimir. The Serbs are demonized by so many, especially the Germans-many believe
it was because they fought so valiantly against the Nazis in WW2. Diana Johnstone has written
"Fools' Crusade- Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions", and Michel Collon "Media Lies and
the Conquest of Kosovo", but books with this point of view are not readily publicised. Nor is
the fact that after his death (no trial had yet taken place) Slobodan Milosovic was finally
found nOT to have been responsible for all the murderous acts he was accused/assumed to be
responsible for.
We can note now of course the Russian reaction to the "annexation of Crimea" after a
referendum, no bloodshed and the referendum also of Russians all over the Federation, while
Kosovo was ripped from Serbia by trickery and not consent, and we see how it is now. Russia
is sanctioned, the people who overthrew the Ukrainian government are not mentioned, Crimea is
not allowed to return to Russia. Slight difference from the "nation" of Kososvo!
Thomas Binder , August 6, 2018 at 6:35 am
The war against #Serbia under #R2P was the #MilitaryIndustrialFinancialMedialComplex'es
ruling the #USA/#NATO/#ISR/#SAU empire (#PNAC's) test for eternal war against #AlQaeda
outside international law & interference of #USLegislators for getting full-spectrum
dominance.
Jackson , August 5, 2018 at 2:21 pm
NATO should have been disbanded after the fall of the Soviets. When you arm people and
train them to kill, they will look for an enemy to fight. War becomes inevitable.
jose , August 5, 2018 at 6:00 pm
It is hard to disagree with your post. Nato, disgracefully, has become a terrorist
organization that has dedicated itself to be the paw of the western elite. Shamefully, other
countries have joined Yugoslavia as victims of Nato criminality. Well done Jackson.
Björn Lindgren , August 5, 2018 at 7:25 am
FOR REASON OF STATE, FOR REASON OF INTEREST
There might be still more reasons for the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Germany had put its mind into destabilizing Yugoslavia to get a "Hinterland". Added to
this, a revenge motive: Nazi Germany occupation of Yugoslavia failed, and this has never been
forgotten. And lastly, Yugoslavia was a member of the non-alignment movement, not obeying
US-NATO.
And, of course, after the collapse of the Warsaw pact, NATO had no enemy, no purpose.
But, it invented one: full US spectrum global dominance.
Sweden has also been punished to obey the US.
During the years of PM Olof Palme, Sweden was also a member of the non-alignment movement.
Palme was educated in and friendly to the US, but critized the US war in Vietnam. (Nixon
hated Palme, and withdraw the US diplomats from Sweden).
1992 foreign submarines penetrated Swedish waters repeatedly.
The submarine incident at Hårsfjärden, a marine base, was not made by Russia,
but was made by US and British submarines. Afterwards, both Caspar Weinberger and Sir Keith
Speed confirmed this. Weinberger even thanked Sweden for not blowing up the US mini-sub
(which we could have done. (Read, "Hårsfjärden. Det hemliga ubåtskriget mot
Sverige," by Ola Tunander).
Purpose: pushing Sweden westward.
Already in the mid 50s, William Colby, later head of the CIA, was in Sweden organizing
stay-behind groups, recruting Swedish voluntary ex-soldiers from the Finnish wars against
Soviet Union. In the 50-s these people were organized in "Sveaborg", a Nazi group.
A good hypothesis is, that Olof Palme was assassinated by a US stay-behind group,
consisting of Nazi military and police.
Which, of course, had to be stonewalled "for reason of state". Today, Sweden is "cooperating" shamelessly with NATO, invite, and have excersices with
NATO. This week, the Swedish government annonced that it will purchase US "Patriot"
anti-missiles with "ballistic capability" (Hey, hey!).
Supporting the insane belligerent US and UK nuclear armament (for a nuclear first-strike?)
against neoliberal, oligarchic Russia, which is planning to keep up in the race towards the
abyss. That is, Sweden is now d e f a c t o a member of NATO, without the Swedish people or
parliament have had a say. NATO which eventually is falling apart, and with a lunatic US
president and his military government in the White House, in a US empire collapsing. The peace aspirations of Sweden are long forgotten. And so, is the Helsinki Conference and
agreement (1975-1983) for common security, disarmamanet , and a nuclear-free zone in
Europe.
The question is if Germany, France, UK (with Corbyn in 10 Downing) and Russia will
organize a new Helsinki Conference and Agreement?
Maybe, "for reasons of interest".
--
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 4:01 pm
Thanks so much for this comprehensive addition to the discussion. Sweden indeed has been
placed in an invidious position.
Pretending that NATO has any purpose even vaguely related to peace is laughable.
David G , August 6, 2018 at 6:01 pm
Great comment, Björn Lindgren. Many thanks.
The withering away of Swedish neutrality into an empty formality has become so obvious,
but never remarked upon in the U.S. I'm sure most cable TV talking heads just assume Sweden
is in NATO – indeed, I've heard the error made, albeit corrected after the next
commercial break.
I appreciate reading your committed, highly informed perspective. Maybe you could submit
an article on this under-reported subject to Consortium News?
Excellent article in the eve of 20th anniversary of NATO aggression on Yugoslavia which
will be marked by Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, March 23, 24rth, 2019.
NATO 1999 aggression was meant to be precedent and turning point in global conduct toward
globalization of military interventionism (Avganistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.). Willy Wimmer wrote
to Schoerder on May 2nd, 2000, USA position: "The war against Yugoslavia was conducted in
order to correct the mistake of General Eisenhower from the 2ndWW. Subsequently, for
strategic reasons, USA troops had to be stationed there ". And: "It is clear that it is the
precedent to be recalled any time" The Bondstil base in Kosovo was only the first in the
ensuing chain of new USA bases in Bulgaria (4), Rumania (4), Albania (2), Baltic states
I think VG is quite correct in this: it was a test. And the test was of the
neocon/humanitarian intervention marriage. Yes, the USA has doe a lot of this sort of thing
in its history, but there has always been some opposition inside the USA. This time, they
figured it out and "humanitarian bombing" was born. We have seen a lot more humanitarian
bombing since.
Branko Mikasinovich , August 4, 2018 at 4:45 pm
A great and truthful article about Western Policy, NATO and US. A courageous and
informative analysis of Mr. Golstein. Thank you.
ToivoS , August 4, 2018 at 1:18 pm
Goldstein writes Russia could do little to help the Serbs. Then the Chinese Embassy was
hit as well, as a test it seems, though The New York Times said it was a mistake. The Chinese
did nothing.
Actually the Chinese did do something. They changed their attitude towards the US. I have
yet to meet a Chinese national who believes that the embassy hit was a "mistake". They and
their government view it as a deliberate attack on their sovereignty. But they realized they
were not in a position respond so they then began military planning for possible conflict
between China and the US Navy in the Western Pacific. In 2000 they started a 10 plan to
achieve the ability to sink any US aircraft carrier within a 1000 km of their shores. We
won't know if they have achieved that ability until a real test is conducted. But that is the
something they have done.
FB , August 8, 2018 at 9:24 am
Good point Toivos The Chinese have never forgotten the Belgrade embassy bombing and they
never will. Ask any Chinese today, even those living in the West the Chinese are an ancient people
with a long and proud memory the embassy bombing was a step too far. All of these hubristic missteps will come back to haunt the empire
Theo , August 4, 2018 at 10:51 am
I remember well the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia under the pretext to stop the genocide
that was allegedly committed by the Serbs. The saddest thing for me was that Germany was
participating in the bombing campaign. My father who was in Yugoslavia as a Wehrmacht soldier
was outraged as were many others. After almost sixty years German bombers were over Serbia
again. My dad used to say German soldiers on foreign soil had never been good neither for the
foreign country nor for Germany. That's why until today the Germans have an aversion to all
military and the deployment of German soldiers in foreign countries is not very popular.
David G , August 4, 2018 at 11:16 am
The 1999 air attacks were the coup de grace, but I think Germany had the (dis)honor of
leading the vivisection of Yugoslavia from the start.
As Vladimir Golstein rhetorically asks: "Or was it to finally kill off a rather successful
Yugoslav experiment in the 'third way' between the West and the Soviet Union?"
Indeed it was, and that surely appealed to all the Western powers. But Germany was
particularly interested in removing a possible continental rival, and took the lead in making
sure it happened – not at all to absolve the U.S., under whose aegis it was ultimately
operating.
Antiwar7 , August 4, 2018 at 11:42 am
The German people and the German government are different. The German government has had
an anti-Serb animus for over 150 years: that's clear. But the German people, as Theo's dad
shows, can be very nice. My father was a POW in Germany for 4 years during WWII, and most of
the German people he encountered were quite nice to him.
Theo , August 4, 2018 at 3:56 pm
You are right. The vivisection of Yugoslavia began when Germany recognized the independence
of Slovenia before any other country did. The German government with Genscher as foreign
minister didn't consult with any of the European allies. Especially France was not amused at
all.
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 4:04 pm
It was Germany, 9 days after reunification, which led the removal of Croatia from
Yugoslavia and beginning the breakup of a successful multicultural country.
Juan P. Zenter , August 4, 2018 at 7:29 am
Yugoslavia was a federation of states and was, thus, an obstacle to consolidating EU and
NATO power in Southeastern Europe. Once the federation was destroyed, the individual states
that comprised it could be absorbed by EU/NATO. That was the ultimate outcome of NATO bombing
there, despite all denials about that being the intent.
Thanks for the article, the photo of the beautiful church, and the reflection on this
horrible chapter from the book of atrocities disguised as "humanitarian" to fool the masses.
This also helped Bill and Hillary Clinton distract the American public from the Monica
Lewinsky affair.
j. D. D. , August 4, 2018 at 7:59 pm
I don't see it that way. Rather, as President Clinton was hit with the Lewinsky scandal
and put on the defensive immediately following his speech to NY's Council on Foreign Relations
in which he called for "a new world financial archithitecture," VP Al Gore, who later shunned
the president, saw the opportunity to determine policy. It was Gore, in consultation with
Hillary Clinton, who decided to launch the criminal bombing of Serbia, informing PM Primakov
after taking a phone call meant for the president. Whereupon the PM turned around his flight
in mid-air over the Atlantic and returned to Russia. By launching an illegal attack on
Russia's ally, the VP and the future Sec. of State, were offering a foreshadowing of the
hawkish and belligerent anti-Russian policy that was to follow for the next 17 years.
FB , August 8, 2018 at 9:31 am
Disagree these are minor details that are meaningless. Yugoslavia had already been systematically dismembered starting the very instant after
German unification and the fall of the Soviet Union. Coincidence ? Maybe a child could believe it by 1999, the final chapter of the dismemberment, Kosovo,
was ready, after several years of laying careful groundwork of subversion, propaganda and
agitation
The Nato war of aggression in 1999 would have proceeded no matter what to think that the
Lewisnky nonsense had anything to do with anything is ridiculous
nonsense factory , August 3, 2018 at 11:50 pm
One major factor in the NATO bombing and the overall agenda in the region was control of
territory for a proposed gas/oil pipeline export route from Central Asia to Europe. The
creation of Camp Bondsteel was directly related to that goal, and the chief contractor
(KBR-Halliburton) played the same role there that they did in the construction of numerous
military bases in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
That's been a dominant theme in U.S. foreign policy and military strategy circles ever
since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Numerous routes have been proposed –
trans-Afghanistan pipeline, the Nabucco pipeline, etc., all with the same goal –
getting Central Asia fossil fuels (leased to US and British majors like Exxon, Chevron, BP,
etc.) to global markets while bypassing Iran and Russia.
Monbiot in the Guardian, 2001 (when it was still a fairly decent paper, rather than a
gung-ho enforcer of the Blairite neoliberal agenda), said this:
"For the past few weeks, a freelance researcher called Keith Fisher has been doggedly
documenting a project which has, as far as I can discover, has been little-reported in any
British, European or American newspaper. It is called the Trans-Balkan pipeline, and it's due
for approval at the end of next month. Its purpose is to secure a passage for oil from the
Caspian sea. . ."
"In November 1998, Bill Richardson, then US energy secretary, spelt out his policy on the
extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about America's energy security," he
explained. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values.
We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west. We would like to see
them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way.
We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us
that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right. . ."
Paul Stuart, in the WSWS, 2002, noted:
"According to leaked comments to the press, European politicians now believe that the US
used the bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp Bondsteel. Before the
start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Washington Post insisted, "With the
Middle-East increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly over rights in the Balkans to
protect Caspian Sea oil."" https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/04/oil-a29.html
Forward project of American imperial power in the name of control of energy resources and
the cash flows arising from them, in a nutshell. Or, "business as usual since the 1950s".
Since JFK, it's all been done under the cover of "humanitarian intervention" and "protecting
democracy" which is why so many American citizens have no idea what the true aims of these
wars have really been
MH , August 7, 2018 at 2:13 pm
Sadly, Monbiot's column aside, the Guardian's coverage of what most of us here think of as
a war against Yugoslav independence was unabashedly pro-NATO and anti-Serb. The outlet did
it's best to confuse otherwise war skeptical liberals -- by demonizing the Serbs as
bloodthirsty savages purveying late 1930s genocide -- about the true character of "the
west's" aggression against the Serbs. Unlike Iraq, where the Graundiad reversed their pro-war
stance, the paper only doubled down on its anti-Serb biases, culminating in trumpets and
coronets for Hague's prosecutors ludicrously inept (at best) handling of Milosevic's
trial.
Bob Van Noy , August 3, 2018 at 8:11 pm
Thank you Vladimir Golstein for this article. I'm sure you know the answers to the
questions you ask in the paragraph titled "Testing the Limlts". The answer to each of them is
given to us and to the world in F. William Engdahl's devastating book entitled "Manifest
Destiny" : Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance. I say devastating because Mr. Engdahl
thoroughly describes a series of American administrations responsible for all of these crimes
and more.
It will be up to us (American Citizens) to educate ourselves as to the real history of our
government acting secretly, without broad consensus, and illegally. This article is a good
beginning but the discussion needs to be broadened and further documented. Then we can begin
to find a resolution.
How one can wonder how the German population stood aside while the Nazis committed their
atrocities while at the same time not speaking out at our own apparent daily military
excesses is beyond me.
irina , August 4, 2018 at 12:01 am
Not to mention meekly paying for these daily military excesses, with no protest.
christina garcia , August 4, 2018 at 1:02 am
here is an historical answer, My Grandfather and Grandmother were born in Koenigsberg
Prussia what is now known as Kaliningrad. The City of Emanuel Kant and not quite in the
1930's fans of National Socialism. My Grandfather owned a brick factory and a saw mill . They
were capitalists, not National Socialists. And you JIMBOBLA , fyi, My Opa was caught by the
Russian Army 1943, my family was totally disunited. It took the Red Cross 3 years to find my
family members and repatriate them .The Nazi organization disliked capitalism . I can prove
every single sentence I wrote. Please be careful when you write Nazism
Sam F , August 4, 2018 at 8:48 am
If you disagree, you should really address the issue of "how the German population stood
aside while the Nazis committed their atrocities." Are you arguing that Nazi atrocities were
justified by the USSR dispersing a family in 1943 Kaliningrad, during a war in which Nazis
killed over 20 million Russians? It would be interesting to hear an argument with substance
and references.
christina garcia , August 4, 2018 at 1:04 am
it is beyond you because you never experienced these atrocities
Milojkovic , August 5, 2018 at 8:11 pm
Dear Christina, I am very sorry about what happened to your family. They probably didn't
have a choice, otherwise the Nazis would have hurt them. Maybe you'd have never been born if
they dared to resist actively. Probably good people, unfairly caught in the whirlwind of
history and human brutality. They were then retaliated against by other Nazi victims without
deserving so, just because of their ethnicity. I am a Serb, living in U.S. Trust me, I can
relate. I was here in U.S. during those terrible days of 1999, living through them as if in a
daze. Life is now "kinda back to normal", but I try my best not to think just how big a part
of me had died in that bombing. My grandfather, who was just a peasant but a very devoted
Christian, died in a horrible pain from the terminal stomach cancer because there was no pain
medication for him; plus the pharmaceutical factories were bombed after having been accused
of being able to produce chemical weapons in a coordinated NATO propaganda just days before.
In agony, he was trying to undress himself, and was screaming and running around the garden.
Several of our family members were killed by Wehrmacht in WW II. I think that Germany had no
business participating in this bombing. Look up Varvarin bridge. It was shameful. And yes,
unfortunately, it was a German hand holding the match that lit up the powder keg that was
Yugoslavia in early 90's.
Consortium's Fan , August 7, 2018 at 10:28 am
Did YOU, Christina Garcia, experience atrocities? Judging by you comment, I am confidently
saying you DIDN'T. You know NOTHING about atrocities. Read and watch films about Nazi doings.
And compare them to "dispersing a family" in a wartime. A recent film worth seeing is
SOBIBOR, entirely based on archives, – a Nazi concentration camp in Poland's Sobibor
– hence the name. Educate yourself.
Lois Gagnon , August 3, 2018 at 5:37 pm
Western populations for the most part are so thoroughly brainwashed they still cling to
the belief they live in civilized countries and their militaries keep them safe from
barbarians. Unf*cking believable.
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 4:11 pm
The likelihood of damage being caused by the USA NOT intervening anywhere must be
vanishingly small!!!!!
Realist , August 3, 2018 at 5:24 pm
To U.S. authorities, foreign lives simply do not matter. No need to conduct any
"intelligence assessment" to determine their culpability. They shamelessly commit mass murder
right out in the open with impunity.
What makes you think USA lives matter to them. I see no evidence of that either.
Realist , August 3, 2018 at 11:39 pm
Nothing makes me think that. Why do you think I chose the phraseology that I did? It
gained currency in reaction to the murderous abuses by American police on our own
streets.
LarcoMarco , August 4, 2018 at 1:50 pm
It gained currency when that other Donald (Rumsfeld) essentially said that G.I's were
cannon fodder.
REDPILLED , August 4, 2018 at 4:54 pm
That despicable attitude long predates war criminal Rumsfeld: "Military men are just dumb,
stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."? Henry Kissinger
Drew Hunkins , August 3, 2018 at 5:17 pm
Michael Parenti's book "To Kill a Nation" is the best book on the criminal NATO war on
Yugoslavia. Followed closely by Diana Johnstone's seminal book "Fool's Crusade."
Antiwar7 , August 4, 2018 at 11:45 am
Agreed: those are excellent books, the best English language works on the breakup of
Yugoslavia.
Isn't it sad that the most enduring monuments the U.S. is leaving for it's worldly legacy
are but artifacts of war and destruction. We could have done much better than this.
Joe – Exactly. I sometimes find myself thinking the "what if" to the U.S. mayhem of
just my own lifetime. "What if" the CIA hadn't coordinated the assassinations of JFK and
Lumumba, as well as of course the murder or overthrow of dozens of elected leaders in former
colonies who simply aspired to helping their own people, rather than acting as proxies to the
continuing pillage by U.S. & Western capitalism. What if instead those leaders were
allowed to lead their nations into a non-aligned world and not forced to be beholden to
either the U.S. or Soviet systems by threats of U.S. military and economic violence? What if
Malcolm and MLK and RFK had not been murdered by forces connected to the U.S. ruling
institutions, and had instead by now had become elder statesmen in a more humane and
democratic U.S. system that would stand in stark contrast to the insane neoliberal capitalist
freak show which has been forced upon the world, and who's mystical – "invisible hand"
– can be found tightly wrapped around the throats of the poor everywhere?
Yes Joe I agree, I think we could have lived in a very different world had not the greed
and pathology of U.S. and Western oligarchy quite intentionally and violently destroyed any
possibility of a more humane and egalitarian world by routinely murdering those more humane
leaders who could have helped us reach it. That possibility of a more humane world was
replaced instead with the odious Maggie Thatcher's "there is no alternative" global nightmare
of continued neocolonial pillage euphemistically called neoliberal capitalism. Only the
fine-tuning of the rational for mass murder has changed. Now we have "duty to protect"
– which translated from 'newspeak' means = "we now must bomb and kill you because we
care about you so very, very much." Sort of a Western postmodern version of earlier
justifications for slaughtering the indigenous in order to – "save their souls" I
suppose. We in the West have created this current version of global "reality" through
absolutely amoral unrelenting mass violence over 500+ years now, and sadly there does not
seem to be any real evidence of a change of heart or direction in our global mayhem.
Joe Tedesky , August 3, 2018 at 9:24 pm
Gary I agree whole heartedly with every word you wrote. I would add to how intriguing it
would be to learn of the high deception played during the passage of the Federal Reserve back
in 1913. Then I'd push out of the way those who blocked Claude Pepper from endorsing Henry
Wallace into the 1944 Democratic Convention. This alone may have changed the course of the
establishment of the CIA, and avoided the disaster that is happening in Palestine to this
day.
Thatcher & Reagan surly introduced us into this new economy which is often said to be
doing so great, and there we are ruined by an overly eager Fed lender along with an out of
sight Defense budget. Your job isn't there, and with that you are told to blame the union.
Ah, the Union wasn't that what Margaret & Ronny sabotaged eventually . nice work.
I do believe the assassination era was the biggest turning point, as it sent a strong
message to the would be seekers of sane government policies who would incur such tragedy if
explored. Joe
Joe – I quite agree. The assassination era was the huge turning point, but as you
point out the corruption and manipulation of democracy by the oligarchy goes way back. Yes,
imagine if Wallace had been the VP for FDR? Had Wallace's nomination not been sabotaged,
perhaps the Dulles brothers would have spent their remaining time on earth learning
woodworking skills in prison workshop after being convicted for the treason of their Nazi
dealings – instead of leading the CIA and State Dept. into the corrupt secrecy of
multiple regime changes, assassinations, and endless insane cold war posturing. The Dulles
CIA era, including it's loving embrace of the Nazi war criminals, seems to have a been in
retrospect a very dark prelude leading up to the assassination era to follow. Ike certainly
had some foreboding of the evil to come given his parting comments.
REDPILLED , August 4, 2018 at 5:04 pm
A brief recommended reading list:
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
by David Talbot
The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil, and the attack on U.S. Democracy by Peter
Dale Scott
The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government by Mike
Lofgren
Bob Van Noy , August 4, 2018 at 8:35 am
Joe and Gary, very nice and well informed thread, thank you. Clearly we all share the
history that both of you mentioned and we also see through the now crumbling obfuscation. It
will become our new duty to use that past experience and a new hope to help make an official
case for correcting the official record and reclaiming Democracy. Actually it's a worthy
endeavor and we're uniquely positioned to help
Consortium's Fan , August 7, 2018 at 10:42 am
"Sort of a Western postmodern version of earlier justifications for slaughtering the
indigenous in order to – "save their souls" I suppose."
Or even earlier justifications (by the Holy Inquisition in the Middle Ages) to burn people
alive to "save their souls".
Realist , August 4, 2018 at 6:03 pm
Excellent point, Joe. I wonder how different the history books will look if this country
somehow manages to shed the warmongering hegemonists who have been in control for at least
the last 70 years (or, one might argue, from its inception).
I'd also like to see an English translation of the current world history books, used in
the schools of China, Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Cuba, Vietnam or dozens of other
countries not part of the American World Empire. I'll bet American actions and motives are
not portrayed to be as noble and pure as the driven snow. I'll bet even Mexico has a quite
different take. Canada? You stopped our invasion in 1812, aided the slaves sent to you via
the Underground Railway and refused to cooperate in the Vietnam fiasco. What happened since
then? Now you extradite AWOL GI's who don't want to go back to the numerous "sand boxes" we
play in. I'll bet those books, if ever published in English, would not be allowed on public
library shelves in the U.S.
I believe there are many questions that need answering about NATO. For instance:
July 14, 2018
The Diabolical "Work" of NATO and Its Allies: Why Are These War Criminals Still Free?
NATO's recent meeting or summit in Brussels July 11 – 12, 2018, could be described
as a gathering of heinous hypocrites. [1] There are millions of people dead, millions are
refugees, their countries have been destroyed and our ruling hypocrites spout the words "rule
of law." Has there ever been a gang of human reptiles (are they even human?) so evil, dressed
in expensive suits [and dresses] and operating out of houses of power called "parliaments"
and other houses of ill repute? These criminals, or gangsters, or bandits, or reprobates (Add
your own epithet) are up to their filthy necks in the blood of the victims of their planned
carnage.
Yet it was reported: "The summit will also discuss the fight against terrorism." Gee! Does
that statement about fighting "terrorism" smack of hypocrisy? There is evidence that NATO and
its members have, in fact, been consorting with, and supporting, terrorists. [2]
[much more info at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-diabolical-work-of-nato-and-its.html
"... At some point the Western Powers decided the that old Communist Apparachik Milosevic would be the Bad Guy and the Croatian freedom-loving "our bastards" the good guys to be internationally recognized and thus enflamed the passion of secession. The thing just flew apart. And afterwards we had to bomb the country in order to save it. ..."
I vividly recall the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. I was nine-years-old and we were not
wired for cable then. There also was no remote control for the 27″ Zenith color
console. I was forced to watch some of the coverage for those reasons. Sarajevo was held up
as a utopian city where Serbs, Croats and Muslims all lived in a beautiful city peacefully.
It was so beautiful said the announcers. And in less than a decade that Olympic stadium
was turned into a cemetery as those peaceful Croats, Serbs and Muslims slaughtered each
other. Once the Soviet Army withdrew from Yugoslavia and the nation disintegrated back into
its ethnic lines, the killings started.
Imagine what is coming in the United States where the simmering hatreds are invited and
exploited by not three distinct groups, but hundreds. Image what is to come when
"historically aggrieved" peoples who have been weaponized for generations to despise their
non-homogenous neighbors.
The erasure of common nationhood and the instilling of grievance as a caste system will
see the US descend into chaotic slaughter the likes of which have never been seen before.
When Pakistan separated from India after the British pulled out, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus
slaughtered each other, stopping trains filled with refugees being repatriated into their new
nations and slaughtering every one of them. Americans have been so denuded of historical
understanding that these histories are unknown.
The malevolence of humanity seething just under the surface until the opportunity arises
for it to burst forth is forgotten by placated propagandized people. What people in world
history have been more propagandized and placated than Americans who have been viewing
carefully crafted scripts since their eyes were first able to focus on a tv screen and whose
desperately poor are morbidly obese?
Stocking a warehouse to the rafters with volatile materials, packing them in so tightly
until they near critical mass, now add in some agitation -- and light a match. The most
devastating weapon ever devised in not the hydrogen bomb, it is a population bomb. A 100
megaton nuclear weapon destroys cleanly -- one flash and a wind storm -- it's all over aside
from lingering sunshine units. In a thousand years the land will forget what had
happened.
A population bomb where the very people have been weaponized will prove far more
devastating and remain scarring the land for eons and that common memory lives on in the
survivors igniting anew every few decades.
Once the Soviet Army withdrew from Yugoslavia and the nation disintegrated back into its
ethnic lines, the killings started.
That never happened though because the Soviet Army was never in Yugoslavia in the first
place. It was Tito who maintained order with an iron fist.
At some point the Western Powers decided the that old Communist Apparachik Milosevic
would be the Bad Guy and the Croatian freedom-loving "our bastards" the good guys to be
internationally recognized and thus enflamed the passion of secession. The thing just flew
apart. And afterwards we had to bomb the country in order to save it.
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate
professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of
Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
Steven Krystofiak formed the Mortgage Brokers Association for Responsible Lending, a
professional association dedicated to fighting mortgage fraud and predation. On August 1, 2006.
He tried to save our Nation by issuing one of the most prescient warnings about the epidemic of
mortgage fraud and predation and the crisis it would so cause.
The context was Congress' effort to empower and convince the Federal Reserve to take action
against what the mortgage lending industry called, behind closed doors, "liar's" loans. A
liar's loan is a loan in which the lender does not verify (at least) the borrower's actual
income. The industry knew that the failure to verify inherently led to endemic fraud. George
Akerlof and Paul Romer's 1993 article on "Looting" by financial CEOs explicitly cited the
failure to verify the borrower's income as an example of a lending practice that only
fraudulent lenders would use on a widespread basis.
Congress gave the Fed the unique authority to ban all liar's loans in 1994, by passing the
Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA). HOEPA gave the Fed the authority to ban
liar's loans even by "shadow" sector financial firms that had no federal deposit insurance.
Liar's loans began to become material around 1989 during the savings and loan debacle where
all good U.S. financial frauds are born – Orange County, California. In that era, they
were called "low documentation" ('low doc') loans. We (the West Region of the Office of Thrift
Supervision (OTS), were the federal regulator for these S&Ls, and we were overwhelmed
dealing with the "control frauds" driving the debacle, who overwhelmingly used commercial real
estate (CRE) as their accounting "weapon" of choice. Our examiners, however, made two critical
points. No honest lender would make widespread loans without verifying the borrower's income
because it was certain to produce severe "adverse selection" and produce serious losses. The
examiners' second warning was that such loans were growing rapidly in Orange County and
multiple lenders were involved.
We listened and responded well to our examiners' timely and sound warnings and made it a
moderate priority to drive liar's loans out of the industry we regulated. The last of the major
fraudulent S&L liar's loan lenders was Long Beach Savings. Long Beach set a common pattern
for fraudulent lenders by also engaging in predation primarily against Latinos and blacks. In
1994, the same year HOEPA became law; Long Beach voluntarily gave up federal deposit insurance
and its charger as a savings and loan. Long Beach's controlling owner, Roland Arnall, did this
for the sole purpose of escaping our regulatory jurisdiction and our ability to examine, sue,
and sanction the S&L and its officers. Arnall changed its name to Ameriquest, and converted
it to a mortgage bank. Mortgage banks were essentially unregulated. Arnall successfully sought
sanctuary in what we now call the "shadow" financial sector. The S&L debacle did not end.
It found sanctuary in the Shadow and grew 50% annually for 13 years.
Ameriquest and its leading mortgage bank competitor, run by former S&L officers we (OTS)
had "removed and prohibited" from working in any federally insured lender, became the leading
"vectors" spreading the epidemic of fraudulent liar's loans through (initially) the shadow
sector and later back into federally insured lenders. Many of Arnall's lieutenants eventually
left Ameriquest to lead other fraudulent and predatory lenders making predatory liar's loans.
Michael W. Hudson's book, The Monster , is a great read that presents this history.
Ameriquest and its fraudulent and predatory peers grew at extraordinary rates for over a
decade. They hyper-inflated the bubble and drove the financial crisis.
Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernake refused to use HOEPA to stop this surging epidemic of
fraudulent and predatory liar's loans. This was the setting when Krystofiak, on his own dime
and initiative took advantage of a Fed hearing on predatory lending near his home to warn us
all of the coming disaster. Krystofiak was not the first warning. His written
testimony cited the appraisers' and the FBI's prior warnings. The appraisers' 2000 petition
explaining how lenders and their agents were extorting appraisers to inflate appraisals was
superb. Chris Swecker's 2004 warning on behalf of the FBI that the developing "epidemic" of
mortgage fraud would cause a financial "crisis" if not stopped was superb.
Krystofiak was also superb. The Fed did not want to conduct hearings on fraudulent and
predatory liar's loans – Congress forced it to do so. The Fed's Board members were not
interested in stopping fraudulent and predatory liar's loans. The Fed did not invite Krystofiak
to testify. The Fed offered only a brief "cattle call" at the end of the hearing allowing
(after a top Fed official had left to fly back to DC) the public to make a very brief
statement.
The Fed's treatment of Krysofiak stood in sharp contrast to its fawning treatment of the
Mortgage Bankers Associations' chosen witness. The MBA chose the leading originator of
fraudulent liar's loans in California – IndyMac – to present the MBA's position.
The MBA's position was that the Fed should not use its HOEPA authority to ban fraudulent and
predatory liar's loans. The Fed officials cracked jokes with and treated the IndyMac officer
like an old pal. They treated Krytofiak with cold indifference. The MBA witness presented utter
BS. Krystofiak
spoke truth to power. Power loved the BS. The truth discomfited the Fed officials.
Krytofiak's written testimony made many vital points, but I refer to only two related points
here. First, he warned the Fed that the twin mortgage fraud origination epidemics –
appraisal fraud and liar's loans – were so large that they were inflating the housing
bubble. Second, his means of quantifying the incidence of liar's loan fraud showed the
regulators and the prosecutors that they could use the same method to document reliably,
cheaply, and quickly the incidence of liar's loan fraud at every relevant financial firm.
Data Collected by the Mortgage Brokers Association for Responsible Lending
A recent
sample of 100 stated income loans which were compared to IRS records (which is allowed through
IRS forms 4506, but hardly done) found that 90 % of the income was exaggerated by 5 % or more.
MORE DISTURBINGLY, ALMOST 60 % OF THE STATED AMOUNTS WERE EXAGGERATED BY MORE THAN 50%. These
results suggest that the stated income loans deserves the nickname used by many in the
industry, the "liar's loan" (emphasis in original).
The MBA's anti-fraud experts, MARI, appears to have conducted the study for Krystofiak. They
featured the 4506-T (the "T" stands for "transcript") study and its finding of a 90% fraud
incidence in liar's loans. In 2006, MARI presented its fraud study at the MBA's annual meeting.
The MBA sent MARI's report to every member, which included all the major mortgage players.
Any honest originator, purchaser, or packager of liar's loans was on notice no later than
mid-2006 that they could determine quickly, cheaply, and reliably the fraud incidence in those
liar's loans by using the 4506-T forms to test a sample of those loans. Krystofiak aptly noted
that while lenders typically required borrowers to sign the IRS 4506-T form allowing the lender
to access their tax information, it was actually "hardly done." Lenders supposedly require the
4506-T because taxpayers have an obvious interest in not inflating their income to the IRS. The
self-employed have to report their income accurately or face potential tax fraud sanctions.
The reason liar's loan mortgage lenders, purchasers, the packagers of toxic collateralized
debt obligations (CDOs ) that typically were composed of large amounts of liar's loans, and
credit rating agencies, "hardly [ever] used" or required the sellers to use their 4506-T
authority is also clear if you understand "accounting control fraud." Any 4506-T study of
liar's loans will document their pervasive frauds. Virtually all liar's loan and CDO sales
required "reps and warranties" that they were not fraudulent. If a firm making or selling
liar's loans conducted a 4506-T study and documented that it knew its reps and warranties were
false, and it continued t make, sell, package, or rate those fraudulent loans under false reps
and warranties it would be handling its counterparty a dream civil fraud suit. They would be
handing DOJ the ability to prosecute them successfully for felonies that caused hundreds of
billions of dollars in losses. The fraudulent mortgage money machine relied on the major
players following a financial "don't ask; don't tell" policy.
The exceptions prove the rule. I have found public evidence of only two cases in which
mortgage players (other than Krystofiak) conducted 4506-T audits of liar's loans. I have never
found public evidence that any federal regulator or prosecutor conducted or mandated a 4506-T
study. The two known cases of 4506-T audits were Wells Fargo (just disclosed by DOJ) and
Countrywide (disclosed by the SEC investigation and complaint). Both audits found massive fraud
incidence in the liar's loans. The risk officers presented these audit results to the banks'
senior managers.
Bank Whistleblowers United's 4506-T Proposal
Two and-a-half years ago, Bank Whistleblowers United (BWU) discussed the senior officers of
Countrywide's response to its 4506-T audit. We noted that BWU co-founder Michael Winston blew
the whistle on Countrywide's frauds to the bank's most senior officers to try to prevent these
frauds. Mr. Winston eagerly aided potential prosecutors – who failed to prosecute
Countrywide's senior officers leading the frauds. BWU then explained the analogous response of
Citigroup's senior officers to a different but equally reliable audit conducted by BWU
co-founder Richard Bowen. We did so in a January 30, 2016 New Economic Perspectives
blog urging presidential candidates in the 2016 election to pledge to implement the 60-day
BWU plan to restore the rule of law to Wall Street.
As documented in the SEC complaint, Countrywide's managers conducted a secret internal
study of Countrywide's liar's loans that, on June 2, 2006, confirmed Krystofiak's findings of
endemic fraud in liar's loans. Fraud was the norm in Countrywide's liar's loans, a fact that
it failed to disclose to its stockholders and secondary market purchasers. Instead of
stopping such loans, Countrywide's senior officers caused it to adopt what they termed
"Extreme Alt-A" loans offered by Bear and Lehman that "layered" this fraud risk on top of a
half dozen additional massive risks to create what Countrywide's controlling officer
described as loans that were "toxic" and "inherently unsound." "Alt-A" was the euphemism for
liar's loans. Countrywide made massive amounts of "Extreme Alt-A" and acted as a vector
spreading these "toxic" loans throughout the financial system. A member of our group, Dr.
Michael Winston, tried to stop these kinds of abuses, which enriched top management but
bankrupted Countrywide.
Similarly, a member of our group, Richard Bowen and his team of expert underwriters,
documented that Citigroup knew that it was purchasing tens of billions of dollars of loans
annually on the basis of fraudulent "reps and warranties" – and then reselling them to
Fannie and Freddie on the basis of fraudulent reps and warranties. Bowen put the highest
levels of Citigroup (including Bob Rubin) on personal notice in writing as the incidence of
fraud climbed from 40% to 60%. (It eventually reached an astonishing 80% fraud incidence.)
Citigroup's leadership's response was to remove his staff. Senior Citigroup officers also
responded to the surging fraud by causing Citigroup to become a major purchaser of
fraudulently originated liar's loans.
We can now add the senior leaders that determined Wells Fargo's response to its 4506-T
audit. We draw on the Department of Justice (DOJ) disclosures in conjunction with its
indefensible settlement of civil fraud claims against Wells Fargo's massive mortgage fraud. The
DOJ press release revealed that "in 2005, Wells Fargo began an initiative to double its
production of subprime and Alt-A loans." DOJ did not explain that this was after the FBI warned
there was an emerging "epidemic" of mortgage "fraud" that would cause a financial "crisis" if
it were not stopped. The settlement discloses that Wells' risk officers alerted senior managers
that the plan to increase greatly the number of liar's loans would greatly increase fraud in
2005 before Wells implemented the plan.
The press release had other bombshells (unintentionally) demonstrating the strength of the
criminal cases that DOJ refused to bring against Wells' senior officers. Wells Fargo's 4506-T
audit found that its liar's loans were endemically fraudulent, and the amount of inflated
income was extraordinary.
The results of Wells Fargo's 4506-T testing were disclosed in internal monthly reports,
which were widely distributed among Wells Fargo employees. One Wells Fargo employee in risk
management observed that the "4506-T results are astounding" yet "instead of reacting in a
way consistent with what is being reported WF [Wells Fargo] is expanding stated [income loan]
programs in all business lines."
The press release note some other actions by Wells' senior managers that show what
prosecutors term "consciousness of guilt." Such actions make (real) prosecutors salivate. The
press release's final substantive revelation is the unbelievable rate of loan defaults on Wells
Fargo's fraudulent loans and the exceptional damages those loans and sales caused.
Wells Fargo sold at least 73,539 stated income loans that were included in RMBS between
2005 to 2007, and nearly half of those loans have defaulted, resulting in billions of dollars
in losses to investors.
Typical default rates on conventional mortgages averaged, for decades, around 1.5 percent.
The Wells Fargo liar's loans defaulted at a rate 30 times greater.
How Corrupt is Wells? Cheating Customers is "Courageous"
The press release does not contain the Wells Fargo gem that proves our family rule that it
is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody. Paragraph H of the settlement reveals
that Wells' term for doubling its number of fraudulent liar's loans in 2005 was "Courageous
Underwriting." Wells' senior managers changed its compensation system to induce its employees
to approve even worse loans. Calling defrauding your customers "courageous" epitomizes Wells
Fargo's corrupt culture built on lies and lies about lies.
DOJ's pathetic settlement with Wells Fargo has no admissions by the bank. It does not
require a penny in damages from any bank officer. It does not require a bank officer to return
a penny of bonuses received through these fraudulent loans. The settlement contains DOJ's
statement that its investigation found that Wells' violated four federal criminal
statutes. DOJ will continue to grant de facto immunity from prosecution to elite
banksters. The Trump administration has again flunked a major test dealing with the swamp
banksters.
Section H (b) of the settlement is factually inaccurate in a manner that makes it highly
favorable to fraudulent lenders making liar's loans. There is no indication that DOJ ever
investigated Wells' fraudulent loan origination practices. It was overwhelmingly lenders and
their loan brokers that put the lies in liar's loans. DOJ's settlement documents do not refer
to Wells whistleblowers, even though and competent investigation would have identified dozens
of whistleblowers. Throughout its Wells documents, DOJ implies that borrowers overstated their
income rather than Wells and its loan brokers.
The Jig is Up on DOJ's Pathetic Excuses for Refusing to Jail Elite Bank Frauds
We now know with certainty from the whistleblowers and the internal audits that the response
of Citigroup, Countrywide, and Wells Fargo's senior leaders to knowing that most of
their liar's loans and the reps and warranties they made about those loans were fraudulent. We
know with certainty that Michael Winston and Richard Bowen's disclosures were correct. We know
with certainty that each served up to DOJ on a platinum platter dream cases for prosecuting
Citigroup and Countrywide's top managers. The senior managers' response to proof that their
banks were engaged in endemic fraud makes sense only if the senior managers were leading an
"accounting control fraud," which enriches the managers by harming the lender.
When the appraisers' warned of extensive extortion by lenders and their agents to inflate
appraisals, when the FBI warned that mortgage fraud was becoming "epidemic" and would cause a
financial "crisis" if not halted, and when the MBA publicized Krystofiak and MARI's warnings
that liar's loans were endemically fraudulent, the fraudulent CEOs' response was always the
same. In each case, they expanded what they knew were endemically fraudulent liar's loans and
increased the extortion of appraisers.
Back to BWU's 4506-T Proposal
This brings us back to reminding the public what BWU proposed 32 months ago about 4506-T
audits. Point 17 of our 60-day plan began:
Within 60 days, each federal financial regulatory agency directs any bank that it
regulates to conduct and publicly report a "Krystofiak" study on a sample of "liar's" loans
that they continue to hold. Krystofiak devised a clever study that he presented to the
Federal Reserve in an unsuccessful attempt to try to get the Fed to stop the epidemic of
fraudulent liar's loans. Lenders and secondary market purchasers routinely required borrowers
to authorize the lender and any subsequent purchaser of the loan to obtain a "transcript"
(4506-T) of the borrower's tax returns from the IRS to allow the lender to quickly and
inexpensively verify the borrower's reported income.
Other parts of our 60-day plan called for DOJ appointees with the courage, integrity, and
skills to restore the rule of law to Wall Street. We also explained the needs (and means) for
the banking regulators to conduct the investigations (such as 4506-T audits), activate a legion
of whistleblowers, and make the criminal referrals to DOJ essential to bring successful
prosecutions.
Conclusion
Had the regulators (particularly the Fed through its HOEPA power) required each bank making
liar's loans to conduct a 4506-T audit, the senior managers would have faced a dilemma. They
could stop the fraudulent lending or provide DOJ with a great opportunity to prosecute them.
The bank CEOs' response to the internal audits showing endemic fraud and the retaliation
against the whistleblowers combine to offer superb proof of senior managers' 'specific intent'
to defraud. The reasons for the failure to prosecute were some combination of cowardice and
politics. If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to
force each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
Of course, the Republican Senate and House chairs could order those steps today . We are not
holding our breath, but BWU's co-founders are eager to aid either, or both, parties restore the
rule of law to Wall Street. Instead, we are rapidly creating an intensely criminogenic
environment on Wall Street that will eventually cause a severe financial crisis.
Did John Stumpf (President of Wells Fargo 2007-2016) really say, "If one family loses
their home, it is a tragedy. If ten million people lose their homes, it is a statistic?"
Even by Black's lofty standards, this is an outstanding article. The fact that it won't be
published in the mainstream media, and that the vast majority of regulators and politicians
will ignore it, underscores once again just how broken and corrupted the American political
and economic systems are.
It's the same in the UK with regard to mortgage fraud and reporting.
A colleague, brought in from the regulator to clean up our German basket case TBTF's brief
and late in the day foray into the mortgage market, said the UK mortgage market was as
corrupt / fraudulent. The same US firms were involved in many, if not most, cases. Lehman had
an outpost, Ascendant, in my home county, Buckinghamshire, for such activity. Lehman, Merrill
and Citi carved out the UK on geographical lines. One (US) firm was given the name of the
Germanic tribe that settled in the area 1500 years before.
FWIW, the kinds of government errors, cowardice, and confusions that Black relates –
on top of having taxpayers foot the bill for it all – was a key factor IMVHO in people
voting Trump as a kind of protest vote. He talks about 'fake news' to a huge number of
Americans who faked income, or approved fake income.
The rest of us, I assume, continue to seethe and are supporting 'honest money, fair
wages/salary' candidates like Warren and Sanders.
In early 2005 I was working as a loan Broker when I met the World Savings rep or the first
time.
The first words out of his mouth were a warning not to take more than 3 pints on the back end
because it was greedy, the second sentence was "If there's a problem with the income the
underwriter will drop the file on my desk, I'll call you and we'll fix it".
He's still in the business, a few rungs further up the corporate ladder, I got out of the
business the following week.
If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to force
each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
The establishment democrats that receive donor dollars from Wall Street banks? I wouldn't
hold my breath waiting for them to even investigate much less do anything else to stop this
criminal activity.
Fabulous piece as usual from Mr. Black. Just makes the tenure of the previous
administration all the more complicit in the current state of affairs. As Mr. Black details
there was an obvious solution to uncover the fraud and go after senior execs, something that
also could have also been done when the 'democrat' party held the House and at least a
leverage position in the Senate. What the American public received instead was a giant con
job/cover-up advertised as restitution and Obama goes on national TV to pathetically claim
that grossly fraudulent behavior was simply unethical. Obviously that maneuver had a higher
ROI for post-tenure legacy building and fundraising.
There is really a simple solution: fire everyone at DOJ and replace them with Air Force
officers.
An Air Force officer is brave. He will fly through enemy fire if he has to in order to do
his job. He gives no thought to the Taliban career opportunities that he might be forgoing by
bombing them.
An Air Force officer is competent. He can fly through thunderstorms in the dead of night
and get his bombs when and where the forward air controller down with the infantry needs
them. Compare that to the experience of an honest IG official trying to get an indictment
from DOJ for anyone at a mega-bank.
An Air Force officer knows how to get funding for his priorities. The Air Force annual
budget, at $156 billion, is about 5 times that of DOJ. Enough said.
When you know these facts, the solution is obvious.
Go read The Pentagon Wars or Coram's Boyd . Air Force (or other service)
officers have no particular claim to virtue. If you pulled mostly captains maybe it'd work,
but the bravery and competence needed on the front line is vastly different from that needed
from say a Colonel or General running programs/units which is likely the officers you'd be
bringing in. Remember you're advocating bringing in people responsible for the boondoggle
that is the F35 to shape up an organization. (which is not an isolated instance but
emblematic of the upper tiers of the service)
Thanks for the referrals; let me take a look. (I have read Thomas Ricks' The
Generals , which I suspect makes a similar point to those.) The point is acknowledged,
although I have not only read The Chickenshit Club but lived through it. There were
many DOJ people I had to deal with whom I can only describe using Bundy's pungent phrase for
the South Vietnamese political leadership: "the absolute bottom of the barrel." They
contrasted starkly with the fellow junior officers I knew in my youth, but as you noted,
those were junior officers.
The simplicity of the 4506-T audits is as profound as the physics comparison of the
diversity of the economy to GDP. These things don't work when all the chaos comes home to
roost. In 1989 our economy was on the rocks and our corporations were offshoring as fast as
they could; the USSR collapsed and we landed like a murder of crows to pick their bones and
loot Russia. OPEC was naming their price; China was exporting massive deflation; our banks
were already on the brink. But how to bring home all the loot from not just Russia but all
the other illegal sources connected with our once and future imperialism? We were no longer a
country of laws; we were looters, thieves and launderers. We were trying to salvage our
"investments" or we were hoovering up flight capital or some other thing that had nothing to
do with law and order and democracy. You name it. How else did all the banks, all of them,
agree to forego their own standards and make all those conveyor belt loans? They prolly all
had to become industrial laundromats and get rid of the stuff asap. Which was perhaps only
one aspect to the ongoing collapse of "capitalism" as we once knew it – but were unable
to protect it. I love Bill Black because he makes me come to uncomfortable explanations who
knows how it all fell apart? Somebody does.
Superb comment Susan. I make know how ' it all fell apart ' other than recognising that
the early capitalists worked with stuff that had to be produced, and so despite vile excesses
produced something useful to many , whereas these financial capitalists produce nothing of
value to anyone except themselves and take away something from everybody else ( liar's loans
being a key example ) . The question is , is there any here beyond here ? Clearly not with
ANY of the present political incumbents ( I am in the UK it's the same for you and us ) . So
that in two sentences is my answer to your question . My question is ' how on earth do we get
beyond here ?'
Re Bill Black: " Instead, we are rapidly creating an intensely criminogenic environment
on Wall Street that will eventually cause a severe financial crisis."
By design and intent with no fear of criminal prosecution for fraud, imprisonment, or even
surrender of ill-gotten personal financial gains. All brought to us courtesy of the political
donor class and large corporations, those they have corrupted, and the Supreme Court's
Orwellian-named Citizens United decision and expanded executive branch powers that
make it possible.
Look at any set of issues: Failure to pass and implement policies to address climate
change, endless wars, defunding public education and infrastructure, the opioid crisis,
manipulation of financial markets, federal government austerity, transfers of public lands
and resources into private hands, privatization of public services, healthcare, stagnant real
wages, loss of any semblance of economic equality, debt burdens placed on our young people
seeking economic opportunity or family formation, lack of legal separation of bank depository
and payments system functions from their market speculations, failure to enforce corporate
antitrust laws, erosion of privacy and civil liberties, repeated bubbles, concentration of
media ownership in the hands of a few, secret international tax havens, etc. and what do you
see?
With the latest disclosures about WF stealing directly from their banking customers on top
of their previous frauds, I'm just sure the regulators will come down hard on them this time
(NOT!)
I wonder if Mr. Trump, with his involvement in commercial RE, ever "mis-stated" his his
income, assets and/or liabilities when obtaining a loan. Nah, couldn't happen.
I wonder why anybody still banks with WF. My late mom had about 30K in a WF account under
a trust that I could not close out for 24 months (Florida laws – WF had a branch in
their eldercare facility.) I was delighted that my closeout check did not bounce.
A while back I worked at a medical device startup operating within a formal (i.e. written
and comprehensive) quality system. A quality system is required for any commercial sales of
medical products; previously I had been involved in early stage R+D and had not been bound by
such systems. So a lot of it was new to me.
Something that stuck out at the time, and probably ties in to the article above, was the
sanctity of corporate internal audit files. The FDA could demand access to almost any company
quality system document, except for internal audit files. They could be provided
with summaries of these internal audits indicating something like "6 minor deficiencies
found, 1 major deficiency found, 0 extreme deficiencies found" , but were not permitted
access to the raw internal audits.
I suspect that financial firms have the same level of protection for their internal
audits. Had they hired a consulting firm to investigate the accuracy of stated income in the
loans they originated, the results of that outside investigation would probably be a document
reviewable by government regulators (assuming they were interested in doing their job). But
by pursuing this as an internal audit, executives knew that the results would never be
reviewable, and give them plausible deniability that they knew of the systemic level of
fraud.
There certainly must be other ways of investigating efficiency or compliance within a
company, but by pursuing it as an internal audit they could easily bury the results.
A quibble: comparing stated income to income tax forms may be misleading, although it is
the standard. People have an interest in understating their income to the IRS, and in
overstating it when seeking a loan. The logic is that they risk prosecution if they
understate to the IRS, but there are plenty of situations where they're very unlikely to get
caught. It's conceivable the loan application is more honest than the tax return.
Loan officers I knew over the decades have changed their views. Asking them if they would
lend their own money to the proposed borrower used to be more likely to elicit a Yes. When
standards loosened (again) earlier this millennium, some answered No until realizing that
they shouldn't care since the money wasn't theirs. What really mattered was getting that
commission endorsed and deposited, given the rise of IBGYBG (I'll be gone, you'll be gone)
thinking.
Another question I asked was about tracking borrower performance relative to loan officer
compensation. Relationship building and longer term interactions declined with the rise of
neo-liberalish (the -ish suffix indicates a primitive reaction to immediate perceived
incentives without further investigation) mindsets. Portfolio lenders had more at risk but
still laid off some of that on the deposit insurance funds. Loan buyers did not fully
appreciate that they had to trust everyone preceding them in the value (destruction) cycle,
from brokers and investment bankers through ratings agencies.
Internal audits, compliance functions and regulatory exams were often the only temporary
inconveniences or obstacles to transactions and related income distribution.
If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to force
each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
Let us, for a moment, imagine this happens. Then what? The results would show widespread
fraud and a pathetic lack of adequate vetting by the issuer. Then those fraudulent loans were
aggregated into various RMBS and sold to others. I hope you can see that just this disclosure
is likely to cause a substantial hiccup in the financial system, perhaps another full-blown
crisis. And who would the public blame? The criminals – or the cops? I could see Dems,
even Dems with little or no connection to the Street, deciding not to open Pandora's box.
That is one of the problems with the American political system. From defense
appropriations to banking regulation, the pols live in fear of being tarred for doing the
right thing, if the outcome is temporarily bad or unpopular. Yes, it would obviously be best
to cleanse the wound, but doing so would hurt, so the pols decide that it would be best for
their popularity to let the wound fester until it becomes too big to ignore or financial
Armageddon occurs. Isn't that precisely the thinking of the Obama Administration?
All major Wall St banks and brokerages including Wachovia, Wells, BofA and even Citadel
and a few foreign banks (ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, etc) set up an offshore sub
called CDS Indexco. This was used as a defacto cartel to control the prices of both Sub-Prime
CDO issues and their respective Credit Default Swaps. They created the Markit BBB- index
which was used by Paulsen, Ackman and a few other chosen ones to short the MBS sub-prime
market. This is the truth.. CDS Indexco dropped that name in Nov. 2008 when the accounting
rules forced Marked to Market accounting and also the Consolidation of VIE's (Special Purpose
Financial Subs that got an exception to the Enron Rule). So in other words: if banks had been
made to follow the "Enron Rule" the financial crisis wouldn't have happened. Goldman's own
employee was the Chairman of CDS Indexco, I couldn't make this shit up. And Yves knows it
too. Gramm Leach Bliley made it all possible – so banks could hold both the debt and
the equity of an entity that they took no responsibility for. This was the precise reason for
Glass-Steagall banks were manhandling the ownership of business due to inherent conflicts of
interest between debt and equity holders.
My dear Murgatory, Wow. This is the first I have heard of CDS Indexco. You are suggesting
that it was much more than a mere market clearinghouse. Where could I read more on this?
A former bank/trustee foreclosure attorney is running for a District Court judge position
in Seattle. Remember Trott, the Foreclosure King, who Michigan sent to Congress? Yeah, this
dude is trying to get on the bench.
On your last paragraph, I've been nursing that hope as far as the ME goes for a while as well. Ever since the Jerusalem decision.
As for European NATO, isn't that already shot? Turkey unreliable at one end. The UK at odds with the mainland at the other,
if all the disaster talk isn't just theatre and maybe if it is. European NATO no longer looks like a credible alliance. Not an
alliance at all should Trump remove or cause to be removed the American glue holding it all together.
But the Colonel's item 8 is going to weigh on the conscience of the West for a long time.
On #8: I would bet that not 1 in 100 Americans know anything about the place at all, never mind the current slaughter. There will
be nothing for them to forget. I'm not trying to be flippant either. Unfortunately, most of my countrymen are simply fat, dumb,
and happy; and content to stay that way.
"... "We could not prevent the slaughter of the Serbs by the Croatians, including elderly people and children " – UNPROFOR French Lieutenant-General Jean Cot ..."
"... " The decision to launch Operation Storm is not controversial; what is controversial, however, is 'the successful effort' of some Croatian officials headed by President Franjo Tudjman to 'exploit the circumstances' and implement the plan to drive Serbs out of Krajina ." -- ICTY prosecutor Alain Tieger ..."
"... Just remember that at that time, US government offered $5 million reward for the capture of war criminal Ante Gotovina, making him the ICTY most wanted man. He was at that time sheltered by Croatian government, and through the notorious Vatican' "Rat Channels", that were used at the end of WWII to facilitate the escape of Nazis, he was hidden (among the other Croatian war criminals) in a Catholic monastery, to be smuggled to Tenerife, where he was eventually captured by the Spanish police, in 2005. ..."
"... " It is important that these [Serb] civilians start moving and then the army will follow them, and when the columns start moving, they will have a psychological effect on each other. That means we provide them with an exit, while on the other hand we feign (pretend) to guarantee civilian human rights and the like " -- ..."
"... Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, during War Council meeting in July 1995 ..."
"... "American concern is that if General Gotovina is arrested he may carry out a threat to disclose previously unknown extent of US covert involvement in the Krajina offensive " ..."
23 Years Ago the US Backed a Brutal Croatian Ethnic Cleansing of SerbsMiodrag Novakovic (
FBReporter ) Sat, Aug
4, 2018 | 4,303
445 If there was a
nation that could safely conclude from its own historical experience that "Crime Pays", than it
must be the newest EU member, Croatia. In the modern history this tiny Catholic nation
committed one of the most horrific genocides in WWII over Serbian Orthodox Christian population
residing in Croatia and Bosnia, murdering at least one million people; and recently in 1995,
Croatia conducted (under US supervision) the biggest and permanent ethnic cleansing "military
operation" against its (again) Serbian population, expelling over 200,000 of them in just three
days (the real number of ethnically cleansed Serbs from Croatia during the wars in 90ies, is at
least twice larger)- unofficially becoming the most ethnic cleanse European state.
If you believe, that Croats "en masse", would be ashamed of such reputation, then you are
dead wrong. Actually most of them are very proud, and for the last 23 years they are
celebrating it very loudly, and doing everything in their power to prevent (after being
pressured by the international community) the return of hundreds of thousands of Serbs to their
ancient land, and to avoid returning of their stolen property, mostly (real estates, farm
lands, etc.).
"We could not prevent the slaughter of the Serbs by the Croatians, including elderly
people and children " – UNPROFOR French Lieutenant-General Jean Cot
Elderly Krajina' resident murdered in his home by Croatian soldiers. His guilt- He was a
Serb
WHEN WESTERN "DEMOCRACIES" ORCHESTRATE ETHNIC CLEANSINGS
Of course, if would be unreasonable, for this evident and well documented war crimes, and
crimes against humanity, to blame only Croats. If their hands are soaked in the blood, of
innocent Serbian civilians, up to their arms, then the hands of their Western sponsors
(namely USA and Germany) are soaked in the blood at least up to their elbows. Simply Croats
would never get away with "such perfect crime", if they were not backed, in every possible
way, by their American and German sponsors.
This week will mark 22 years, since on August 4th 1995, Croatia lunched so called
military-police operation, named Storm, against Serb' held and controlled Krajina region.
Croats backed by US military-logistic & air support, CIA intelligence drone
reconnaissance, and open political support from Washington, completed their "operation" in
just three days. On August 7th they declared "victory".
Their "victory resulted": in a complete ethnic cleansing of Krajina region, and a murder
of at least 2,000 Serbs; vast majority of them were defenseless civilians. Official sources
claim that: 1,192 Serbian civilians were killed or missing, and around 200,000 thousands
(entire Krajina population) were expelled from their ancient land. Their property was
destroyed, looted and stolen, by the Croatian "soldiers" (who performed this "operation"
under direct Washington' supervision, while UNPROFOR peacekeepers assigned for the protection
of UN designated "Krajina Safe Zone" just stood by, doing almost nothing to prevent the
slaughter).
Croatian "soldiers" in "liberated Krajina"
IMPERATIVE WAS TO ESTABLISH US MILITARY
PRESENCE IN YUGOSLAVIA
To understand this US complicity, and its direct military involvement, in such horrendous
atrocity against one ethnic group, in one, of many, civil wars, which erupted, when former
Socialist Yugoslavia "fell apart", again with covert or overt Western support, we have to
look here at the wider picture-
When the Clinton' government, together with their major European allies, decided in 90ies,
that the best American interest in the Balkans will be to back armed rebellion of the
separatist administrative regions in Western Yugoslavia, and openly support the breakup of,
internationally recognized, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while it was still the UN member,
they consciously opened the Pandora box.
They openly sided politically & militarily with Slovenian and Croatian Catholics from
the Western Yugoslavian Republics, and with Islamic fundamentalists from Bosnia, in their
civil and religious wars against Orthodox Christian Serbs living outside, then administrative
Republic of Serbia (and later in 1999, US & NATO started another illegal war against
Serbia, on behalf of Islamic Albanian separatists from Kosovo, ultimately "stealing" this
Southern Serbian province).
Croatian and Bosnian Serbs, who simply wanted to remain in their Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, and not to be "taken away" by Catholic and Islamic separatists, and not to be
stripped of their constitutional rights, under existing Yugoslavian laws, naturally rebelled
against such illegal and violent Yugoslavian outcome, and they subsequently declared own
autonomy within the Yugoslavian separatist' regions.
And then all hell broke loose
The historical roots of such American approach, could be found in the Western (mainly
British and American) support of "Anti-Stalin" communist leader of post-WWII Yugoslavia
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (who was Croat himself), who provided Western leaders with assurances
that he will, not only keep Yugoslavia outside the Soviet bloc, but he would align militarily
his country with NATO alliance as well; and later in Reagan' presidential directive NSDD133,
from 1984, which outlined US strategic interest to expand its military presence to
Yugoslavia.
Croatian and US military leadership celebrating "joint operation"- the biggest ethnic
cleansing in Europe since WWII
THEY ARE KILLING "LITTLE RUSSIANS" TOO, AREN'T THEY
?
The "only" obstacle to this US (read NATO) expansionist policy in the former Yugoslavia,
was Serbian (majority) population, which was, due to its traditional friendship with Russia,
considered as "problematic" and had to be decimated, "broken into pieces", and Republic of
Serbia to be disabled as an independent state, during so called "spontaneous" civil wars in
90s.
I am not trying here to state that in the Western society exist some unexplained hatred
against Serbs (in same time, there is a lots of prejudice, and media & Hollywood bias,
picturing Serbs primarily as "bad guys"), actually I believe that people and their
politicians in the West could not care less about Serbs (Serbians), and most of them have no
clue where to find Serbia on the geographic map. But in same time, as we can observe these
days in the West, particularly in United States, there is a lot of unfounded and unreasonable
hatred for the Russians
And if we are familiar with the popular saying among Western diplomats, that "Serbs are
Little Russians", then is not difficult to put two and two together, and understand their
desire to "disable" any Russian-friendly nation in the region.
As long as you are a Serb, regardless of your age, for Croats and their US sponsors, you
are a "fair game"
CROATIAN WAR CRIMES AGAINST SERBS WERE SO EVIDENT, AND ON SUCH LARGE
SCALE, THAT WESTERN CONTROLLED ICTY HAD NO CHOICE, BUT TO SENTENCE CROATIAN LEADERSHIP
Western controlled ICTY (International Crime Tribunal for Yugoslavia) reluctantly brought
charges for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, against (war time) ultra-nationalistic Croatian
leadership and group of its generals. But in the wake of overwhelming evidence and
international outcry, they had little choice.
In 2001 ICTY brought charges for war crimes against Croatian president general Franjo
Tudjman (who will be remembered for publically saying "that he was very proud that his wife
was neither Jew or Serb"), Croatian defence minister Gojko Susak (prior to war- open Neo-Nazi
ideologist), and two other former (renegade) Yugoslav Army generals, (promoted into supreme
commanders of Croatian army) Janko Bobetko and Zvonimir Cermenko. Their indictment was
actually travesty of justice, because at the time they were charged, all of them (with
exception of General Janko Bobetko), were already dead (by natural cause). General Bobetko
died one year after indictment, before he could be delivered to ICTY.
" The decision to launch Operation Storm is not controversial; what is
controversial, however, is 'the successful effort' of some Croatian officials headed by
President Franjo Tudjman to 'exploit the circumstances' and implement the plan to drive
Serbs out of Krajina ." -- ICTY prosecutor Alain Tieger
When the indictment of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, for
their war crimes and ethnic cleansing of Croatian Serbs in Krajina, during "operation" Storm
in 1995, was announced in 2008- Serbs who survived US sponsored pogrom and ethnic cleansing,
were naively hoping that at last some justice will be served.
Even, with such unprecedented obstruction of ICTY by Croatian government, Catholic Church
and wider Croatian society, who concealed and destroyed many war documents, facilitated
escape and concealment of indicted Croatian war criminals, and intimidated not only victims
and witnesses, but ICTY leadership as well- the trial of those three Croatian generals came
to conclusion in 2011, and after the overwhelming evidence (the evidence, Croats were not
able to conceal or destroy), Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years, Markac to 18 years, while
Cermak was acquitted.
Serbian victims hoped that at the end at least some justice was served- but they were
wrong again. There is a Serbian saying: "A crow doesn't pick out another crow's eyes."-
In 2012, ICTY appeal chamber overturned the decision of lower chamber, and unconditionally
acquitted Croatian war criminals Gotovina and Markac for all crimes. Entire Croatia and its
diaspora erupted in joy and massive celebration.
Their historical experience that Crime Pays have been proven yet again
Serbian children getting starved to death and slaughtered by knife in a first-ever death
camp for children and infants established by Croats in Jastrebarsko, Sisak, Stara
Gradiska, Independent State of Croatia in WW2
Even, after the ICTY had proved (from the audio and written transcript of Croatian war
leadership meeting in July 1995) – that there was very credible evidence of existence
of a joint criminal enterprise, with intent to forcibly remove ethnic Serbs from Croatia, and
that civilian areas in Krajina, including the subsequent civilian refugee columns, were
indiscriminately shelled by Croatian artillery, and bombed & machine gunned by Croatian
air-force – that did not prevent the real ICTY masters to pervert the course of
justice.
One would wander who and what was behind such obvious and embarrassing justice travesty,
demonstrated in this example. What had forced American controllers of ICTY to change their
mind, and influence the tribunal to free of any charges, these obvious and heavy documented,
war criminals?
Just remember that at that time, US government offered $5 million reward for the
capture of war criminal Ante Gotovina, making him the ICTY most wanted man. He was at that
time sheltered by Croatian government, and through the notorious Vatican' "Rat Channels",
that were used at the end of WWII to facilitate the escape of Nazis, he was hidden (among
the other Croatian war criminals) in a Catholic monastery, to be smuggled to Tenerife,
where he was eventually captured by the Spanish police, in 2005.
Serbian civilians fleeing US/CRO joint operation "Storm" were bombed, machine-gunned, and
ran by Croatian tanks, mercilessly- thousands of innocent people just
perished
INTERNATIONAL "POST-MORTEM" RESPONSE
It is worth to mention accusations and reactions, to such perversion of justice by ICTY,
from some highest international bodies and public persons, at that time-
US Security Council, on August 10th 1995 issued "post-mortem" (when ethnic cleansing of
Serbs was already completed) resolution #1009, demanding from Croatia to halt military
operation, and condemning targeting of UN peacekeepers (during the operation Storm, Croats
had killed three UN soldiers) – but UNSC failed to request a withdrawal of the Croatian
forces, and de-facto accepted new "ethnically cleanse" reality!?
The only UN official, who was fully aware of the horrific aspect of this US sponsored
"operation", and who was trying to prevent further Croatian atrocities against Serbian
population, was, at that time, the Head of UN mission in Yugoslavia, Thorvald Stoltenberg,
who urged UN Secretary Yasushi Akashi to request NATO strikes against Croatian army, to
prevent further atrocities against civilians.
Of course, that never happened, especially if we know that Croatian operation Storm, was
directly supervised by the retired US generals (via Pentagon military contractor MPRI), while
US Air Force conducted air raids against Serbian Air Defense systems in Krajina, and CIA
officers operated surveillance drones, which provided intelligence for advancing Croatian
troops, from two Croatian bases in Adriatic.
Even, EU negotiator Carl Bildt, and US ambassador in Croatia Peter Galbraith, publically
condemned Croatian atrocities in Krajina- but they too stayed short of requesting some
concrete and punitive measures.
" It is important that these [Serb] civilians start moving and then the army will
follow them, and when the columns start moving, they will have a psychological effect on
each other. That means we provide them with an exit, while on the other hand we feign
(pretend) to guarantee civilian human rights and the like " --Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, during War Council meeting in July 1995
The only ones from UN troops who tried to prevent Croatian atrocities, and in couple
occasions fought bravely against bloody-thirsty Croatian soldiers, where Canadian
peacekeepers from "Patricia Company", but they too, where upon return to Canada, silenced and
their experience never got real media traction. Their testimony simply did not fit with the
Western agenda, that Serbs are the only bad guys
THE REAL ATROCIOUS OUTCOME OF THE
BIGGEST ETHNIC CLEANSING IN POST-WWII EUROPE IS MUCH HIGHER, THEN THE OFFICIAL FIGURES
STATE
While ICTY prosecutors accepted the fact that some 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed
in just couple of days from Krajina region, they "lowered" the number of murdered Serbian
civilians to 324. Serbian sources on the ground documented 1,192 dead or missing civilians,
while Croatian Helsinki Committee documented 677 killed.
Human Rights Watch documented at least 5,000 Serbian homes razed to the ground by Croatian
forces, and HRW accused Croats for summary executions of elderly and disabled Serbs, who
stayed behind due to inability or unwillingness to leave their homes. We can only imagine if
the entire defenseless Serbian civilian population stayed behind, and faced bloody-thirsty
Croatian soldiers- in that case we would be talking here about a full scale genocide, not
"just" the ethnic cleansing!?
To better understand what kind of "Croatian justice" were facing defenseless Serbian
civilians, who decided not to leave their homes during operation Storm, here is one excerpt
from Wikipedia, describing one of many of Croatian "post-Storm" atrocities against innocent
civilians-
"The Varivode massacre was a mass killing that occurred on 28 September 1995 in the
village of Varivode , Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence . According to United
Nations officials, soldiers of the Croatian Army (HV) and Croatian police killed nine
Croatian Serb villagers, all of whom were between the ages of 60 and 85. [4] After
the war, six former Croatian soldiers were tried for committing crimes in the village, but
were all eventually released due to lack of evidence On the night of 28 September 1995,
Croatian soldiers entered the village of Varivode and killed nine elderly Serb villagers.
The civilians that were killed were Jovan Berić, Marko Berić, Milka Berić,
Radivoje Berić, Marija Berić, Dušan Dukić, Jovo Berić,
Špiro Berić and Mirko Pokrajac. After the executions occurred, the bodies were
buried in a cemetery near the village without the knowledge of the families of the victims.
[4] After the
massacre, Croatian authorities denied reports of widespread atrocities targeting Serbs and
said that they were propaganda. Later, the government blamed the atrocities on
uncontrollable elements within the Croatian Army and Croatian police. [25]
Christiane Amanpour 's report from October 1995 said that the "United Nations believes 12
Serb civilians were massacred." [25] In the
first one hundred days following Operation Storm, at least 150 Serb civilians were
summarily executed, and many hundreds disappeared as part of a widespread campaign of
revenge against Croatia's Serb minority. [26] The bodies of the
killed Serbs were never exhumed, autopsies were never performed and much of the evidence
that could have been used against the perpetrators of the crime was discarded. [27]
Despite this, six Croatian soldiers were tried for committing crimes in the village. The
soldiers were Ivan Jakovljević, Peri Perković, Neđeljko Mijić, Zlatko
Ladović, Ivica Petrić and Nikola Rašić. However, in 2002 they were
all released due to the lack of evidence against them. [27] In
July 2012, the Supreme Court of Croatia ruled that the Republic of Croatia was responsible
for the deaths of the nine Serb villagers who were killed in Varivode. The Supreme Court
declared, "two months after the conclusion of Operation Storm, an act of terrorism was
committed against the Serb inhabitants of Varivode for the purpose of causing fear,
hopelessness and to spread feelings of personal insecurity among the citizens." [35] –
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varivode_massacre
By 2012, Croatian government received 6,390 reports about committed war crimes against
Serbian civilians, during and after operation Storm, but did little or nothing to bring the
perpetrators to justice.
To make things worse and more humiliating for surviving Krajina Serbs, Croatian government
is still refusing to return (or reimburse) 140,000 Serbian homes, stolen from ethnic Serbs.
795 Serbs, presumed dead, are still missing, 1,604 bodies were retrieved- according to NGO
"Veritas".
Croats were attacking Krajina using the strategy of "Scorched Earth", with unconditional
US support
DID THE CROATS SUCCESSFULLY BLACKMAIL U.S. GOVERNMENT INTO SUBMISSION,
FORCING THEM TO OVERTURN THE INITIAL ICTY RULING!?
Defense ministers celebrating the joint outcome of the biggest ethnic cleansing in Europe
since WWII- Left: US William Perry, Right: CRO Gojkos Susak
The initial ICTY ruling in 2011, which sentenced Croatian generals Gotovina and Markac to
long term imprisonment, was expected, and very well supported by the "conclusive evidence".
Even, according to many international experts, this sentencing was not enough tough, and did
not cover the full scale of war crimes and atrocities, committed by Croatian political and
military leadership, during and in the aftermath of operation Storm. Still, many Serbian
victims were satisfied that they finally achieved at least some justice
So, when in November 2012 ICTY appeal chamber ruled that Croatian generals are innocent of
all charges and free to go, the news came to many as a complete shock, and reaffirmed them in
a belief that ICTY tribunal is just another NATO war tool, in their efforts to punish and
humiliate, not only the Serbian government, but the numerous Serbian victims of civil wars in
90ies, whose executors were never (and probably never will be) brought to justice.
The ruling was very controversial, not only because it ignored all the hard evidence,
including the forensics and the testimony of the international observers, but because the
formal excuse for the liberating judgment was – that in the prosecutor documents were
missing the Croatian artillery log books, that according to the Appeal chamber, were the only
document that would prove the Croatian intent to drive Serbian population from Krajina. The
same books were previously repeatedly requested by the ICTY prosecutors, and Croatia did not
even deny its existence, but simply refused to cooperate with ICTY and hand them over.
Finally, when in 2008 Croatia was warned by European leaders that non-cooperation with ICTY
might affect the prospect of its EU membership – somebody from the Croatian leadership
simply destroyed these books, and they informed Hague tribunal that Artillery logs no longer
exist. Even such provocative and blunt obstruction of the international justice by the
Croatian government, did not result in any repercussions for them, and practically they were
forgiven for their deeds. Crime pays – doesn't it?
Anyway, ICTY tribunal had plenty of other evidence, proving the intentional destruction of
Serbian civilian infrastructure was very well documented by the international observers, and
in April 2011 ICTY had no choice but to sentence general Gotovina to 24 years, and general
Markac to 18 years.
Another fact that indicates that Appeal chamber' ruling was the political one, and result
of some external interference was its split decision – the chamber ruled by the
majority decision 3 – 2, implying that there were serious doubts and disagreements, by
at least two of the Appeal chamber judges.
"American concern is that if General Gotovina is arrested he may carry out a threat
to disclose previously unknown extent of US covert involvement in the Krajina offensive
"– London Times, June 14th, 2003.
Gotovina was arrested, but only shortly, until Croatian blackmail convinced their US
masters, to pull strings in ICTY, and free him unconditionally
CROATIAN OFFICIALS
PROVIDED A PLENTY OF EVIDENCE THAT U.S. GOVERNMENT WAS INVOLVED IN "STORM" MILITARILY, AND
HAD A FULL CONTROL OVER WAR (CRIMES) ACTIVITIES THAT TOOK PLACE ON THE GROUND
As soon the ICTY indictments against Croatian leaders were announced in 2001, the Croatian
government, NGOs, public, and very well organized and connected diaspora, displayed anger and
disagreement, promising that they will do everything in their power to obstruct ICTY
investigations and prevent trials against their "national heroes". When in 2011, the first
instance judgment by ICTY was issued and Croatian generals were sentenced to long term
imprisonment, the Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and President Ivo Josipovic publicly
expressed their shock and rejection of the ruling, promising to help to overturn the
judgment, on appeal!?
And they started their campaign – of obstruction of justice, of abetting the accused
war criminals, of the intimidation, and finally, of the blackmail, of ICTY and US officials
–
On July 4th, 2002, NGO associated with Croatian government "Croatian World Congress-
CWC" filed complaint with ICTY citing what proofs, about US direct involvement in ethnic
cleansing of Krajina, they have:
" US officials aided General Gotovina and the Croatian army in operation Storm by
violating UN arms embargo and allowing Croatia to obtain weapons US officials established a
CIA base inside General Gotovina' military base, which provided the US officials with
real-time video footage of events transpiring on the ground during Operation Storm (and
thus imputing to them knowledge of events on the ground ), but also from which they could
provide such intelligence data to General Gotovina to assist him in conducting Operation
Storm . If General Gotovina carried out pre-planed campaign to deport 150,000 to 200,000
Croatian Serbian civilians, the CIA base was not only used to provide knowledge to US
officials of such plan and course of conduct on the part of General Gotovina , but was also
used to assist General Gotovina in achieving the goals of his alleged plan . The US
official gave the green light for the Operation and provided diplomatic and political
support for it . The US officials at all times had the ability to halt the military
operations . Accordingly, the US officials named in the complaint should be indicted for
having aided and abetted General Gotovina. "
Ethnic cleansing in Krajina was the joint US/CRO criminal enterprise History will be the
judge
If you read carefully through this CWC statement (threat), they are not even trying to
deny Gotovina' war crimes, they are just implying bluntly, that if their lovely General was
sentenced, they would gladly provide ICTY with the evidence of Croatian-American "Joint
criminal enterprise to forcibly remove the Serb population from Croatia ", as it states the
ICTY indictment from 2001, of course omitting the US participation (which was the very secret
deal, at least until Croatian officials started "mouthing" their "American friends").
Croatian complaint to ICTY specifically named the highest US officials, alleging that
they, along General Gotovina, committed too war crimes against Serbian population:
"On behalf of the Croatian World Congress, a non-governmental organization that is a
member of the United Nations with advisory status, you are hereby notified pursuant to
Article 18(1) of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia of the existence of information concerning serious violations of international
humanitarian law (hereinafter "IHL"), namely that officials of the United States of
America, including but not limited to William Jefferson Clinton , Anthony Lake , Samuel
Berger , Richard Holbrooke , Peter Galbraith and/or George J. Tenet (hereinafter
collectively referred to as "U.S. officials"), aided and abetted Croatian General Ante
Gotovina , who was indicted by your office on 8 June 2001."
War Criminals at work together- Croatian general Kresimir Cosic and US supreme commander
general Wesley Clark
We are not going here to present detailed evidence of US crimes, committed during the
operation Storm. Of course, the Croatian war crimes on the ground were very brutal,
systematic and savage, they did "the physical work", but from the evidence provided by
numerous Croatian officials and their organizations, it is very obvious, that operation Storm
would never happen, or if happened never would be successful, without US military support and
direct supervision, or without US approval.
Just to give you "a taste" what kind of American support Croats were enjoying during their
atrocious operation against innocent Serbian civilians, will present you with some documented
facts:
The Green Light for the operation came a couple days prior the assault- President Clinton
passed the order directly to US military attaché in Zagreb Colonel Richard Herrick;
Herrick passed order to Croatian head of military intelligence Markica Rebic (the others
involved directly were defense minister Gojko Susak, Miro Tudjman and Miro Medimurac, heads
of Secret Service and Intelligence Service). US masters were so pleased with Rebic' service,
that they rewarded him with Meritorious Service Medal, delivered to him by Ambassador
Galbraith in 1996. The other people from USG involved in this joint criminal enterprise with
Croats, in addition to Clinton, were Anthony Lake and William Perry. US masters imposed the
time limit on operation Storm- it had to be completed in 5 days.
Long before the Storm, in 1992 USG with Croatian approval established CIA reconnaissance
base on island of Brac, from where CIA operators were flying unmanned aircraft spying on
Serbian positions in Krajina, Bosnia and part of Serbia itself. USG requested that this
cooperation to be held a top secret, so outsiders don't find that US is taking sides in the
Balkans' civil wars. But it did not stay for too long the top secret. On January 1st, 1994,
Croatian state security apprehended a spy on the base perimeter. They delivered him right
away to General Gotovina, to find out it was their German ally, precisely it was German
military attaché Hans Schwan.
This incident alerted USG, which wanted to conceal any covert activities on behalf of CG,
so they promptly removed CIA base to new secret location, in Sepurina, near city of Zadar.
This new location was covered by three security layers, to ensure the full secrecy. From new
base CIA started immediately collecting photographic and video evidence of Serbian activities
in Krajina and Bosnia, and passing them to Croats, and to Pentagon. There was 24 hours, 6
member intelligence crew, present on site- consisting of three CIA and three Croatian
military officers.
Croatian military base Sepurine, near Zadar, from which CIA operated drones, aiding
operation Storm, and providing live video feed of "military activities" on the ground to
Pentagon
"STORM" WASN'T THE FIRST ETHNIC CLEANSING, UNDERTAKEN BY
CROATIA AND US, AS A JOINT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE:
It is interesting that disgruntled (by ICTY indictment) Croatian Officials and Croatian
World Congress body, in their complaint to ICTY, are providing the evidence about USG
intelligence and logistical support for another Croatian genocidal operation, named Flash,
that took place in Western Slavonia, between May 1st and 3rd, 1995, which resulted in
another complete ethnic cleansing of Serbian population- prior to the operation this area
was populated by 29,000 Serbs, after Flash, only 1,500 remained.
The number of killed civilians is unknown because Croats prevented UNPROFOR troops from
accessing the area, until they did "the sanitation" (read: removing the evidence of their
crimes, because entire Serbian refugee columns were massacred and overran by Croatian
tanks). Estimates of killed civilians rage between one hundred to couple thousands. Another
example of "the successful US-CRO joint criminal enterprise"?
The interesting details, revealed here by Croatian sources, is- that US military
attaché Herrick was attached to the Croatian mobile military command, during the
genocidal operation Flash, supervising it directly- and the head of CIA branch in Zagreb
Marc Kelton was directly coordinating expulsion of Slavonia' Serbs, with Croatian president
Tudjman son Miro.
In the eve of the attack on Krajina, on August 4th 1995, between midnight and 4 a.m.
Croatian forces were ordered to turn off all telecommunication devices, to unable US air
force to electronically disable all Serbian communications.
The outcome of Joint US/CRO "justice"
According to NATO spokesman Jim Mitchell in Aviano, Italy, two US military planes EA-6B
Prowlers were dispatched to Krajina air space. USAF planes, on the top of jamming Serbian
telecommunications, destroyed the airport Udbine, and Radar and Serbian Air Defense near
Knin, in order to prevent any Serbian air support or defence, against invading Croatian
forces.
Here, US military attaché Herrick was replaced by the Colonel John Sadler, who was
embedded with Gotovina command unit, directly supervising operation Storm. Pentagon was also
directly monitoring the operation via live video feed.
Shortly after the biggest joint (US/CRO) ethnic cleansing in Europe was completed, US head
of DIA General Colonel Patrick Hughes visited Croatia to coordinate further military actions
against Serbs in Bosnia and if necessary in Republic of Serbia
Hitler, it has been reported, in 'Secret History of the Twentieth Century' by
Herbert Dorsey, commended the USA for having 'gunned down the millions of Redskins to
a few hundred thousand.' This way of 'winning the West' type-casts American as
imperialist and certainly sympathetic with much we associated with fascism. America
lead the world in race-based lawmaking to safeguard the historically white character
of the country. Including immigration legislation to guarantee the predominance of
northern Europe and shut the doors on Jews, Italians, Asians and others. Nazi
commentators called this keeping out the 'undesirables.' The eugenics movement took
root in the United States in the early 1900's.
This article concerns the largest ethnic cleansing in Balkans that was committed
by Croatia with US operational support. The US committed multiple war crimes in the
Balkans in the 1990's.
After the 1990's the US has clearly emerged the fascist rogue state of the 21st
century.
Events in Ukraine after EuroMaidan are notoriously difficult to understand.
The book is fairly recent and as such might be a useful introduction for a Western reader who
is interested in Ukrainian event, but the material should be taken with a grain of salt. The
author is way too simplistic and his views on geopolitical problems are incorrect. The idea that
" Putin's Munich speech as a declaration of war" is nonsense. Also most of the readers probably
know State Department talking points and can recognize them in the text.
. In some areas the author is clearly incompetent as the quote "In 2016, France blocked
24,000 cyber attacks targeting its military. Ukraine experienced 24, 000 cyber attacks in only
the last two months of 2016" suggests.
The author views of Russia are typical of the US-based Ukrainian diaspora. As it is pretty
much radicalized, it can be argued that it brings to Ukraine more harm then good. In short his
views on Russia can be defined as cocktail of a 40% proof Russophobia with pure Neoconservatism.
So while author analysis of "Post-Maydan" Ukrainian elite has its value, his view on Russia
should probably be discarded.
For those who also bough McFaul book it is interesting to see correlation in views as well as
differences (especially McFaul laments from page 429 to the end of the book) . McFaul was the
co-architect of the 2011-2012 color revolution in Russia; and as an Ambassador became ostracized
by Russian and later removed by Obama. For his role in "White color revolution of 2012" McFaul
was put on the travel ban list by Russians and is not allowed to travel to the country. Both
represent neoconservative stance on the events, but there are some subtle and rather interesting
differences ;-)
Some Amazon reviews as one reproduced below are actually as valuable as the book itself and
can serve as a valuable addition.
This is a large book, embracing a vast amount of research. Conclusion is that
accommodation with Putin will be very difficult.
This is a large book, embracing a vast amount of research. Kuzio provides the conclusion
to the book as the conclusion to his introduction. It is somber, but realistic:
"There cannot be a conclusion to the book because the Donbas is an unresolved conflict
that is on-going. There will be no closure of the Ukraine-Russia crisis as long as Putin is
Russian president which will be as long as he remains alive. To fully implement the Minsk-2
Accords would mean jettisoning the DNR-LNR which Putin will not do and therefore, a political
resolution to the Donbas conflict is difficult to envisage."
Having lived in Kyiv for ten years, I was witness to the latter chapters of the drama that
Kuzio describes. His account jibes with what I witnessed, and provides a coherent explanation
of the events as they unfolded. The animus against Yanukovych was universal. His blatant
theft was visible to all. Every merchant I dealt with lived in fear of his tax police. We
saw, or more often read accounts about, the depredations of the titushki on a daily
basis.
One of my key questions in 2014 was whether it might have been better to endure Yanukovych
for another couple of years, until the elections. The Ukrainian people answered for me --
they had had enough. It wasn't exactly a coup, because the opposition was not well organized
and because Yanukovych fled before he could be overthrown. But the will of the people was
clear. He had to go. Kuzio makes a strong case that if it had not happened then, Yanukovych
might have had time to secure his dictatorship in such a way that he could not be dislodged
through democratic means.
Kuzio provides the most thorough and accurate description of the language situation I have
ever read. A fact he often repeats is that a majority of the soldiers fighting against the
Russians are themselves Russian speakers. Putin's claim that he is protecting a persecuted
linguistic minority is absolute nonsense. Kuzio makes the very useful analogy between the use
of English in Ireland and that of Russian in Ukraine. It is a matter of history and
convenience.
Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian. They are very distinct languages. Speaking Spanish,
I was able to learn Portuguese quite easily. Speaking Russian has not enabled me to master
Ukrainian. They have different alphabets and even different grammars. As a resident of Kyiv
for 10 years I have not been forced to, and almost not been in a position to speak Ukrainian.
Everybody I interact with is exactly as Kuzio describes – ardently Ukrainian, but
nevertheless Russian speaking.
A question Kuzio does not raise is the utility of a language. For better or worse, Russian
is a world language. There is a significant body of scientific literature, fiction and poetry
written in Russian. It is, or was until recently, the lingua franca of the former USSR.
A lot of information about Kuzio himself is packed in the brief lead into his chapter
entitled Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism: "Ukraine is in the hands of homosexuals and Jewish
oligarchs. Aleksandr Dugin"
Russian philosopher Dugin is one of Kuzio's major bête noire's. Kuzio's book makes
it clear that Dugin is as much of an activist as he is a philosopher. Dugin seems to have a
hand in most things anti-Ukrainian. As a philosopher he is nothing – his book
The Fourth Political Theory is the subject of the most savage pan I have ever written.
Nonetheless, he is taken seriously by the resurgent Russian nationalists and Putin
himself.
Dugin's claim that Ukraine is in the hands of homosexuals is absurd. Homosexuals are
tolerated here, but they are discrete. Most Ukrainians, though they have no love whatsoever
for Russia, are largely in sympathy with Russia's stand against the flaunting of
homosexuality. The college-educated twentysomethings whom I know seem unaware that they even
know homosexuals, though it appears to this San Franciscan that some people in our circles
must be gay.
The claim that Ukraine is in the hand of Jewish oligarchs is quite another matter. Kuzio
gives quite rational explanations for anti-Ukrainian, anti-Belarusian and anti-Russian
sentiment, a great deal of which he manifests himself. He somehow looks at anti-Semitism as a
phenomenon that is beyond explanation. I would contend that it should be regarded just as the
other anti- concepts. Especially in the former USSR, where the Jews were regarded as a
separate people in the same way as Ukrainians.
He writes about the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Fraud or hoax might be a
better word. Internet sources name the author as a certain Russian Professor S. Nilus writing
in 1901. The attractiveness of the fraud is that it coincides quite neatly with widely held
opinions about the Jews, many of which have some substance.
Going to substance, Kuzio mentions some of the major Jewish oligarchs, Kolomoisky and
Taruta, and some of the Jewish participants and Ukrainian politics: Yatsenyuk and Groisman.
He discounts the notion that President Poroshenko's father, born Valtzman, was Jewish. I had
never heard this account questioned. Other prominent Jews in Ukrainian politics/oligarchy who
come immediately to mind include Feldman and Rabinowitz. It is not that there is anything
wrong with Jews occupying dominant positions, but "simple Ivan" is not so stupid as to fail
to notice them. It is also widely perceived that the Jewish oligarchs are no better or worse
than the others, in that they put their personal interests ahead of that of the people who
elected them. Poroshenko has been a major disappointment. Kuzio writes of Kolomoisky's
support of the volunteer battalions in Donbas. True – but it was totally in line with
his business interests.
The fact that six of the seven billionaires to emerge after the collapse of the USSR were
Jewish belies Kuzio's claims that they were radically disadvantaged in the USSR. More
balanced accounts of Soviet Judaism have been written by Robert
Wistrich ,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Yuri
Slezkine .
Even a paranoid has enemies. American Jewish neocons, especially Victoria Nuland and
husband Robert Kagan, actively involved in Ukrainian politics, were strongly anti-Russian.
Though Kuzio is absolutely correct that the animus of the Ukrainian people for Yanukovych was
more than enough to power the Maidan uprising, it is also probably true that the CIA was
covertly abetting the protesters.
Kuzio's history of the Donbas and Crimea provides a very useful background to the
conflict. After the Welsh engineer John Hughes discovered coal around Donetsk in the 1880s
there was a rush to exploit it. The sparse population of Ukrainian farmers was not interested
in working the mines. The Russians brought in men from all over the Empire. A large number
were criminals who earned early release by promising to work there. Others were simply
soldiers of fortune.
Mining is dirty, dangerous and very masculine work. Kuzio reports that the history of the
Donbas always mirrored the miners themselves. Politically, it sat in the middle between the
Russians and the Ukrainians, respecting neither very much and casting its lot with whoever
appeared at the moment to be most generous to them, more often Moscow than Kyiv.
Kuzio relates that Lenin included the Donbas within the Ukrainian SSR as a built-in fifth
column, as a lever to control all of Ukraine. It remained after independence in 1991. The
Donbas' unique culture and clannishness protected its politicians from probing inquiries into
their dark pasts, such as Yanukovych' two prison terms. They would overlook his depredations
and send him to Kyiv with the idea that "he's a crook, but he's our crook."
Crimea's history is even more convoluted, but the bottom line is that it has always been
Russian speaking and did not identify greatly with Ukraine.
Kuzio reports, seemingly approvingly, that fellow author Alexander Motyl believes that
Ukraine would be better off without these insubordinate, intransigent ingrates.
In the end, Kuzio sums the origins of the crisis up very well, "The roots of the
Ukraine-Russia crisis do not lie in EU and NATO enlargement and democracy promotion, as
left-wing scholars and realists would have us believe, but in two factors. The first is
Russia's and specifically Putin's unwillingness to accept Ukrainians are a separate people
and Ukraine is an independent state with a sovereign right to determine its geopolitical
alliances. The second is Yanukovych and the Donetsk clan's penchant for the monopolization of
power, state capture, corporate raiding of the state and willingness to accommodate
practically every demand made by Moscow that culminated in treason on a grand scale. This was
coupled with a shift to Sovietophile and Ukrainophobic nationality policies and return to
Soviet style treatment of political opponents. Taken together, these policies made popular
protests inevitable in the 2015 elections but they came a year earlier after Yanukovych bowed
to Russian pressure to back away from the EU Association Agreement. These protests, in turn,
became violent and nationalistic in response to the Party of Regions and KPU's destruction of
Ukraine's democracy through the passing of draconian legislation, the president's refusal to
compromise and his use of vigilantes and police spetsnaz for political repression, torture,
and murders of protestors."
The question facing Ukraine at the moment is how to resolve the war in Donbas and how to
prevent Russia from making further incursions. Kuzio shares some very useful insights in this
regard.
Even in 2014, Russia simply did not have the resources to conquer Ukraine even if it had
had the desire. Kuzio repeatedly makes the point that the Russian doctrine of hybrid war
depends on a sympathetic or at least indifferent local populace. Even in the Donbass the
Russians have not been welcomed by a majority.
Time and again, Putin proves himself too smart by half. In his desire to maintain
deniability, he employed Chechens, Don Cossacks and "political tourists," thugs from all over
Russia to infiltrate the Donbass as separatists. Criminals are simply not suited for either
civil administration or organized warfare. After three months it was clear to Putin that he
had to use Russian troops and administrators, pushing the separatists aside. Not mentioned in
the book is the fact that a great many of the separatist leaders died mysteriously. Although
Russia attempted to frame Ukraine for "Motorola's" death, it appears to have been done by
Russian agents. Russia's trecherous duplicity neither won the war for them no fooled anybody
for very long.
Russia has thus had several handicaps in capturing and holding even the small, Russophone
and previously Russophile enclaves in Lugansk and Donetsk. The LPR and DPR would not survive
without ongoing Russian support. They have not won the hearts and minds of the people.
This calls to mind Custine's
Penguin Classics Letters From Russia on the fact that Russian duplicity and deceit made
it impossible for them ever to subvert the West. Alexandr Zinoviev summed it up exquisitely
in his satirical Homo
Sovieticus :
"Even though the West seems chaotic, frivolous and defenseless, all the same Moscow will
never achieve worldwide supremacy. Moscow can defend itself against any opponent. Moscow can
deliver a knockout blow on the west. Moscow has the wherewithal to mess up the whole planet.
But it has no chance of becoming the ruler of the world. To rule the world one must have at
one's disposal a sufficiently great nation. That nation must feel itself to be a nation of
rulers. And when it comes to it, one that can rule in reality. In the Soviet Union the
Russians are the only people who might be suited to that role. They are the foundation and
the bulwark of the Empire. But they don't possess the qualities of a ruling nation. And in
the Soviet empire their situation is more like that of being a colony for all the other
peoples in it."
This is the bottom line, something for the warmongers in Washington to keep in mind.
Ukraine and NATO cannot defeat Russia on its own doorstep, but Russia can certainly defeat
itself. For NATO to arm Ukraine, as the west did Georgia, or continue to crowd it as they are
doing in the Baltics, is counterproductive. It would be quite possible, but also quite stupid
for Russia to roll over its neighbors. The adventure in Ukraine has already been expensive,
and holding Crimea and Donbas will only become more so. Conversely, for the west to arm
countries against the Russians, as the US did in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Nicaragua, proved
quite deadly for these supposed friends. Ukraine and the west should wait Putin out just as
they waited out the USSR.
I have a couple of quibbles with the book. Kuzio uses the word "Fascist" to characterize
various Russian nationalist groups that support Putin and attack Ukrainians. Fascism died
with Hitler, 72 years ago. There should be a better term. This is especially true as Putin
terms Ukrainians as "Fascists." The word is inappropriate, old and clichéd.
Kuzio goes on to paint the rising nationalist movements in Europe as Fascist, or extreme
right wing. He excoriates Marine le Pen for taking Putin's money. There is a strong case to
be made that anti-democrats, supported by mainstream parties, have seized the European
Parliament and strongly suppressed free speech, open debate and the ability of such
nationalists to find funding. Their national banks are prejudicially closed to Farage,
Wilders, Orban, le Pen and the others. Kuzio should be more accommodating to the
nationalists. Ukraine may soon find itself forced to work with them. Moreover, they have many
good points. Generation
Identity provides a succinct summary. It is a book of the millennial generation, the
nationalists' strongest base, outlining their case against their elders, the boomers.
Ukraine is a conservative country. It is not wise to push the west's liberal agendas with
regard to immigration, homosexuality, feminism and civil rights for the Roma and at the same
time steel Ukraine for its fight against Russia. Even joining the battle against corruption
smells of hypocrisy, as evidence of political corruption emerges all over the west. It is
better to recognize the simple facts, as Kuzio does, and have a bit of faith. Ukraine managed
against stiffer odds in 2014. It will survive.
The author provides some interesting observations... He ignores the role of economics
though.
Looks like a replay of events in Baltic republics. Might increase emigration and
"provisialization" of Ukraine because Russian is suppressed but English did not became the second
language (which is probably impossible without switching education into English language).
Dominance of EU might be more harsh regime, then most of the supporters of Eurointergation
assume, especially in economic sphere -- the status of semi-colony and debt slave are given, but
it can be worse.
Economic suffering of population and pauperization of Ukraine are immense...
Notable quotes:
"... Yet, at least half of the population of all eight administrative regions of mainland South-East Ukraine viewed the Euromaidan as a coup, because, according to a survey conducted in early April 2014 by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, only a third of respondents in these regions (the survey was not conducted in Crimea and Sevastopol) considered Yatsenyuk and Turchinov legitimate heads of government and state, while half of respondents considered them illegitimate (Kiev International Institute of Sociology, 2014c). ..."
"... The conformism of the South-East elite, which only recently was at the head of the anti-Maidan movement, surpassed the conformism of society many times over, because this elite had much to lose. ..."
"... The situation with Crimea was another factor that objectively strengthened Kiev's position in the South-East. ..."
"... This predictably could not increase pro-Russian sentiments in the rest of Ukraine. ..."
"... anti-Russian forces took an increasingly tough position, describing all talk of federalization as separatism. ..."
"... the winners of the Euromaidan Crimea was not a reason but a pretext for starting a policy of de-Russification. However, these events influenced the political swamp, that is, citizens without a clear position, and strengthened the base of the current regime, as evidenced by the results of public opinion polls and elections. ..."
"... the Europeans played up to Kiev in criminalizing the notion 'federation,' because for the West the Ukrainian problem is part of the Russian problem ..."
"... The West views them as paramilitary organizations which established power in those regions with external help and imposed themselves on the population. ..."
"... This position of the West strengthened the attitude of the pro-Western liberal public in Ukraine towards people in the South-East as sovok ..."
"... the "discursive violence of the Ukrainian media" in late February-early April 2014 paved the way for the "brutality of the antiterrorist operation" by creating a negative image of people of the South-East. ..."
"... Ukrayinska Pravda, Livyi Bereg, ..."
"... At the same time, Ukrainian radical nationalism objectively was an instrument which Ukrainian [neo]liberals used to achieve victory. ..."
"... However, positive dynamics for either party to the conflict is not only measured by territories they seize -- it is seen in the fact that actions, formerly deemed impossible, turn out to be possible and not having obvious negative consequences. For example, the implementation of the political part of the Minsk Agreement (which both Kiev and the West consider imposed on Ukraine from the outside) now seems to be a much more illusory goal than it seemed in 2014-2015. ..."
"... In particular, Kiev has rescinded a bill on constitutional amendments regarding decentralization; an economic blockade of Donbass has been introduced; and several laws have been passed and measures taken to combat the Russian World, both inside and outside the country. ..."
"... The law on the reintegration of Donbass, passed by the Verkhovna Rada this January, was a logical development and a new stage of this policy. Its purpose is not so much to recognize the territories beyond Kiev's control as occupied by Russia. What is more important is that the law recognizes this state de facto without a formal recognition of the war with Russia de jure. ..."
"... This positive dynamics creates a situation where a critical mass of society thinks that at least Ukraine will not find itself in the same difficult situation as in the spring of 2014 and that, at best, it will restore full control over Donbass on its terms: Russia will not withstand the sanctions and will stop supporting the uncontrolled territories. The policy of the West does not contradict these expectations: the sanctions continue, there is almost no public criticism of Kiev's actions in Donbass at the state level, except for minor issues, and the U.S. has decided to supply Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine, which is largely a symbolic gesture fitting perfectly into the aforementioned pattern of positive dynamics. ..."
"... Of course, very many of the above-mentioned elements of the positive (for Kiev) dynamics also have a great negative effect. For example, the existing format of the conflict in Donbass involves great military expenditures and leads to reduced ties with Russia, which is a significant burden for the Ukrainian economy. ..."
"... The present scale of losses of the Ukrainian army is not a factor that may spark a mass antiwar movement in the country, similar to the antiwar movement in the United States in the late 1960s, because the ratio of casualties to population in Ukraine is much smaller than that in the U.S. during the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Naturally, the economic situation in Ukraine is much less stable than that of the U.S. during the Vietnam War. However, in the public consciousness, the war is only one factor behind the economic problems (along with corruption, incompetence of the authorities, etc.). ..."
"... The war has advantages, too. Of course, they would have disappeared in the event of a full-scale conflict, but Kiev is confident that this will never happen. In a situation like this, it finds it simpler to mobilize society, convince it to put up with difficulties and, most importantly, format the political and information space in an advantageous way. Beneficiaries of this reformatting include not only the government but also a wide range of parties and politicians who supported the Euromaidan. ..."
"... So, the current format of the conflict strengthens the political regime in Ukraine, which is actually the closest to regimes of limited political competition, such as those that existed in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period in the 20th century, or some Latin American countries (Brazil and Guatemala) after the Second World War. There is formal pluralism and a real possibility of succession of power there, yet real power can be contested only by forces from one political spectrum, whereas forces that are beyond this spectrum are restrained and can only aspire to seats in parliament. ..."
"... support is limited -- the West will not fight for Ukraine and will not provide aid on a scale comparable to the Marshall Plan. ..."
"... Already now, due to migration, the population of the territory now controlled by Kiev is less than 30 million people (judging by bread consumption statistics). ..."
"... This means it has decreased by more than 40 percent since 1991. ..."
"... As regards Ukraine's admission to NATO, many Western European countries oppose this option. On the other hand, they have not proposed any detailed plan for Ukraine's non-aligned status. Objectively, such status would be best guaranteed by the specifics of the state's internal structure, when accession to a military alliance would require a consensus of the regions. ..."
"... If this state collapses due to external factors, the identity of a large part of its present population may change very quickly, as evidenced by the experience of the 17th century and recent decades. ..."
In Ukraine, however, the switching of sides takes place on a larger scale. For example,
President Kuchma and Prime Minister Yanukovich had a majority in the Verkhovna Rada elected in
2002, which decreased somewhat in the last few months before the 2004 elections. Yet, newly
elected President Yushchenko did not have any problems with the same parliament. The Ukrainian
parliament elected in 2007 supported Prime Minister Timoshenko, but after Yanukovich won a
presidential election in February 2010 he had a solid majority in it until the next election.
Yanukovich also had a majority in parliament elected in 2012 until the last days of the
Euromaidan. However, after the victory of the Euromaidan, a coalition was formed in parliament
that supported the new authorities. It united factions and groups of 235 deputies in the
450-seat parliament, of whom 69 did not belong to pro-Euromaidan parties. Also, 371 deputies,
including almost all deputies from the Party of Regions, voted to appoint Yatsenyuk as prime
minister.
Can these figures serve as grounds to classify the Euromaidan as a coup d'état and
accuse the new regime of failing to build a government of national accord, provided for by the
agreement between Yanukovich and the opposition? A coup d'état presupposes suspending
and resetting the functioning of government institutions, whereas this agreement did not
specify what a national accord government should look like. On the other hand, the essence of
such governments is to unite people of different political views, rather than make their
members and supporters give up their former beliefs.
Yet, at least half of the population of all eight administrative regions of mainland
South-East Ukraine viewed the Euromaidan as a coup, because, according to a survey conducted in
early April 2014 by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, only a third of respondents
in these regions (the survey was not conducted in Crimea and Sevastopol) considered Yatsenyuk
and Turchinov legitimate heads of government and state, while half of respondents considered
them illegitimate (Kiev International Institute of Sociology, 2014c). However, the elite
of the South-East did not question the legitimacy of the new government. The most it was ready
to do was consider this government undesirable and due to be replaced at the next election.
The conformism of the South-East elite, which only recently was at the head of the
anti-Maidan movement, surpassed the conformism of society many times over, because this elite
had much to lose. But in this situation, the masses of protesters who considered the
Euromaidan a coup found themselves without their usual leaders. New leaders emerged
spontaneously from among protesters and were not viewed as authoritative by those who did not
take part in the protests. The depth of the gap between the masses and the elites can be seen
from the following fact: There is the émigré Ukraine Salvation Committee in
Moscow, headed by former Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov, which positions itself as almost a
government in exile. The Committee considers the hostilities in Donbass a civil war and,
therefore, does not view the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics as
occupation administrations. Yet, it has no contact with the leaders of these republics, which
also consider themselves an alternative Ukraine.
Although there was less conformism among the masses than among the elites, it still made the
protests in the South-East less widespread than they might have been if there had been a sign
of dual power, for example, if Yanukovich and the part of the elite, including parliament
deputies, who did not recognize the new regime had tried to create alternative government
institutions. This conformism made many people accept on faith the assurances of the new
government about broad decentralization, including the humanitarian sphere.
The situation with Crimea was another factor that objectively strengthened Kiev's
position in the South-East. Beginning in March, Crimea and Sevastopol, which could have
been at the vanguard of protests for reformatting Ukraine, withdrew from the political field of
the country by joining Russia. This predictably could not increase pro-Russian sentiments
in the rest of Ukraine. Formerly, public opinion polls had invariably showed a good
attitude of the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians towards Russia. However, during the
conflicts over Tuzla in 2003 and the gas dispute of 2009 their attitude deteriorated
significantly. Now it happened again, only this time the conflict was much more serious.
Attempts by the state which annexed part of Ukrainian territory to act as an arbiter and, at
the same time, pressure Kiev to reformat Ukraine into a federation, in which the voice of the
South-East should be heard, were predictably doomed to failure. Even potential supporters of
Russia doubted the impartiality of such arbitration, and anti-Russian forces took an
increasingly tough position, describing all talk of federalization as separatism.
True, Ukrainians who were firmly pro-Russian did not become more hostile to Russia because
of Crimea, while for the winners of the Euromaidan Crimea was not a reason but a pretext
for starting a policy of de-Russification. However, these events influenced the political
swamp, that is, citizens without a clear position, and strengthened the base of the current
regime, as evidenced by the results of public opinion polls and elections. EUROPEAN
INTEGRATION VS COMPROMISE
On the other hand, it would be legitimate to ask whether the victory of the Euromaidan
necessarily had to lead to a war, and whether a compromise could have been reached with the
masses of the discontented in the South-East at an early stage. My answer is "no."
The short history of independent Ukraine developed, on the one hand, as a history of steady
integration into European and world (but Western-controlled) organizations, and on the other
hand, as a history of crises which became increasingly explosive and which ended in
increasingly imperfect compromises. For some time, the relationship between these processes
could be easily overlooked, but now it is much more difficult not to notice it. The February
2014 agreement on the settlement of the crisis, for the first time achieved with the
participation of European guarantors, was also the first world agreement in the history of
Ukraine that was not fulfilled. It was after the signing of the economic part of the
Association Agreement that an anti-terrorist operation began in the East, and immediately after
the political part of this agreement was signed (June 27, 2014), this operation entered into
its largest-scale and bloodiest phase.
Of course, the West needed to put an end to Kiev's multi-vector policy and achieve
unambiguous certainty for it. Hence its position on the language issue and the territorial
structure of the country, which was most vividly realized in the April 2014 PACE resolution,
which spoke of the inadmissibility of any mention of Ukraine's federalization (Parliamentary
Assembly, 2014).
Obviously, the real problem was not in the word but in an optimal distribution of powers
(for example, Spanish autonomous communities have more powers than Austrian federal lands), but
the Europeans played up to Kiev in criminalizing the notion 'federation,' because for the
West the Ukrainian problem is part of the Russian problem . Its attitude to the protests
in the South-East and then the war in Donbass differed fundamentally from its attitude to an
overwhelming majority of internal conflicts around the globe.
In the cases of Cyprus, Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic Serbs in Croatia and Kosovo, Aceh in
Indonesia, FARC in Colombia, etc., the West considered the leaders of separatists or insurgents
legitimate representatives of certain ethnic or social groups who had taken over powers not
provided for by the laws of their country. Their right to be a party to negotiations was not
questioned. But the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics are in no way seen as
self-proclaimed republics that reflect the views of their populations, even though
illegitimately from the point of view of Ukrainian legislation. The West views them as
paramilitary organizations which established power in those regions with external help and
imposed themselves on the population.
This position of the West strengthened the attitude of the pro-Western liberal public in
Ukraine towards people in the South-East as sovok (homo Sovieticus) and
vatnik (bigots), whose opinion could be ignored. A recent study (Baysha, 2017)
convincingly shows how the "discursive violence of the Ukrainian media" in late
February-early April 2014 paved the way for the "brutality of the antiterrorist operation" by
creating a negative image of people of the South-East. Importantly, these were not
state-run, oligarchic or party nationalist media, although they did the same. These were
popular websites, which are thought to be mouthpieces for liberal civil society (
Ukrayinska Pravda, Livyi Bereg, and Gordon ).
In other words, the conflict was a logical consequence of Westernization, rather than the
rise of nationalism. Welcoming the successes of the Ukrainian army in July 2014, the European
Parliament thus made it clear that this Westernization on the civilizational borders of Europe
may not resemble the practices of major European countries. At the same time, Ukrainian
radical nationalism objectively was an instrument which Ukrainian [neo]liberals used to achieve
victory. True, it is not willing to play this role and wants to be something more than
just an instrument. But behind the talk of the Banderization of Ukraine is a confusion of the
notions of customer and contractor.
WAR IN AN ACCEPTABLE FORMAT
Of course, many of those who took part in the Euromaidan did not fight there for renaming
Vatutin Avenue in Kiev as Shukhevich Avenue, or for banning the import of Russian books,
including memoirs of Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, or for banning songs by Russian singers
Vladimir Vysotsky and Victor Tsoi described as "tentacles of the Russian World" which leeched
onto Ukrainians (definition by Vladimir Vyatrovich, the head of the Institute of National
Memory, the most Euro-integrated organization of the Ukrainian government, which consistently
advocates the idea of a nationalist "recoding" of Ukrainians). The voices of people who do not
agree with this (for example, the poet and culturologist Evgenia Bilchenko) are sometimes heard
in the media space, but the problem is whether these voices, together with the voices of those
who were against the Euromaidan from the very beginning, can become a political factor.
I think this is almost ruled out under the most likely, inertial, scenario which provides
for the development of tendencies that emerged after the victory of the Euromaidan and the
preservation by Russia and the West of their behavioral models which have developed over recent
years.
When assessing this scenario, one should bear in mind that the armed conflict in Donbass has
over the last three years entered into a format that is the most advantageous (of all really
possible ones) for Ukraine -- a low-intensity smoldering conflict.
This situation objectively predisposes one to see dynamics, positive for Kiev, in the
conflict that began in 2014. At first, Ukraine surrendered Crimea to Russia and pro-Russian
forces without a fight. At the next stage, however, it localized the offensive of the Russian
World to Donbass, although it failed to take full control over the region. The result of this
phase of the fight can be regarded as a draw, or Ukraine's defeat on points. But Crimea was
lost through a knockout. After that, a defeat on points is still a better outcome.
The next, longest phase of the conflict has been going on without changes on the frontline.
However, positive dynamics for either party to the conflict is not only measured by
territories they seize -- it is seen in the fact that actions, formerly deemed impossible, turn
out to be possible and not having obvious negative consequences. For example, the
implementation of the political part of the Minsk Agreement (which both Kiev and the West
consider imposed on Ukraine from the outside) now seems to be a much more illusory goal than it
seemed in 2014-2015.
In particular, Kiev has rescinded a bill on constitutional amendments regarding
decentralization; an economic blockade of Donbass has been introduced; and several laws have
been passed and measures taken to combat the Russian World, both inside and outside the
country. The latter include the termination of air service, a ban on remittances,
restrictions on the import of Russian books, a ban on performances by some Russian
entertainers, the actual abolition of the law "On the Basic Principles of the Language Policy,"
restrictions on the use of the Russian language on the Ukrainian radio and television and its
abolition in education (with the exception of primary school), de-Russification of geographical
names, and the removal of monuments.
Kiev views all these measures as non-military blows to the enemy, and the scale of such
actions increases with every year.
The law on the reintegration of Donbass, passed by the Verkhovna Rada this January, was
a logical development and a new stage of this policy. Its purpose is not so much to recognize
the territories beyond Kiev's control as occupied by Russia. What is more important is that the
law recognizes this state de facto without a formal recognition of the war with Russia de
jure.
This positive dynamics creates a situation where a critical mass of society thinks that
at least Ukraine will not find itself in the same difficult situation as in the spring of 2014
and that, at best, it will restore full control over Donbass on its terms: Russia will not
withstand the sanctions and will stop supporting the uncontrolled territories. The policy of
the West does not contradict these expectations: the sanctions continue, there is almost no
public criticism of Kiev's actions in Donbass at the state level, except for minor issues, and
the U.S. has decided to supply Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine, which is largely a
symbolic gesture fitting perfectly into the aforementioned pattern of positive
dynamics.
For the reasons mentioned above, the West does not advocate a direct dialogue between Kiev
and Donetsk/Lugansk, but considers the existing level of conflict with more and more victims an
obviously lesser evil than a possible strengthening of the self-proclaimed republics. This
clearly follows from the statement of German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel about the
inadmissibility of Russia's proposal on a UN peacekeeping mission, which provides for the
separation of the warring parties by peacekeepers, to be deployed along the frontline, and the
protection of the OSCE mission, because that would only mean freezing the conflict. (A meeting
between Vladislav Surkov and Kurt Volker, which took place in Dubai during the writing of this
article, showed that the Americans are nevertheless ready to accept the Russian format as the
first phase of a peacekeeping mission; yet its practical implementation is still far off.)
Of course, very many of the above-mentioned elements of the positive (for Kiev) dynamics
also have a great negative effect. For example, the existing format of the conflict in Donbass
involves great military expenditures and leads to reduced ties with Russia, which is a
significant burden for the Ukrainian economy. However, it is important to understand a
balance between positive and negative aspects from Kiev's point of view.
Of course, the mobilization was a straining factor for society, because it could affect
almost every family. But since the end of 2016, when all people mobilized a year before
returned home, only contract soldiers and professional officers have taken part in the conflict
from the Ukrainian side -- that is, only those who have made this choice voluntarily or who
have chosen military service as their lifetime career. This is the main reason why the format
of hostilities can be considered acceptable or, at least, not too burdensome for Ukrainian
society.
The present scale of losses of the Ukrainian army is not a factor that may spark a mass
antiwar movement in the country, similar to the antiwar movement in the United States in the
late 1960s, because the ratio of casualties to population in Ukraine is much smaller than that
in the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
Naturally, the economic situation in Ukraine is much less stable than that of the U.S.
during the Vietnam War. However, in the public consciousness, the war is only one factor behind
the economic problems (along with corruption, incompetence of the authorities, etc.).
The unpopularity of the idea of peace at any cost not only shows the specific character of
the Ukrainian regime but, above all, it shows that society does not view the crisis as a
catastrophe, which means that the conflict has acquired a format convenient for Kiev.
This format means, in particular, that, to paraphrase Trotsky, Ukraine is in a state of both
peace and war with Russia, taking advantage of each of these states. For example, over the
first 11 months of 2017, Ukrainian exports to Russia grew by 12 percent and brought Ukraine
U.S. $360 million more than a year before. Two-thirds of Ukrainian coal imports come from
Russia, including 80 percent of anthracite, which has become scarce due to the blockade of
Donbass.
The war has advantages, too. Of course, they would have disappeared in the event of a
full-scale conflict, but Kiev is confident that this will never happen. In a situation like
this, it finds it simpler to mobilize society, convince it to put up with difficulties and,
most importantly, format the political and information space in an advantageous way.
Beneficiaries of this reformatting include not only the government but also a wide range of
parties and politicians who supported the Euromaidan. For example, there is a segment
among supporters of the Batkivshchina Party, led by Yulia Timoshenko, and the Radical Party,
led by Oleg Lyashko, who, judging by public opinion polls, do not support either a
confrontation with Russia or the current policy of historical memory. Obviously, these are
former supporters of the Party of Regions and communists, who have realized that the successors
to these parties will not be allowed to win anyway and that power can be contested only by
pro-Euromaidan parties. Therefore, they side with forces that are close to their own
ideological position, guided by their social slogans and disregarding their greater
geopolitical and humanitarian radicalism in comparison with the current authorities. But such a
choice can be made only if one is confident that this radicalism will not lead to a great war
and catastrophe.
So, the current format of the conflict strengthens the political regime in Ukraine,
which is actually the closest to regimes of limited political competition, such as those that
existed in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period in the 20th
century, or some Latin American countries (Brazil and Guatemala) after the Second World War.
There is formal pluralism and a real possibility of succession of power there, yet real power
can be contested only by forces from one political spectrum, whereas forces that are beyond
this spectrum are restrained and can only aspire to seats in parliament.
History shows that such regimes can exist for a very long time, especially with external
support, which Kiev certainly has, if we mean support for its geopolitical policy, rather than
concrete persons in power. It is another thing that such support is limited -- the West
will not fight for Ukraine and will not provide aid on a scale comparable to the Marshall
Plan.
The Georgian scenario for changing this regime is theoretically possible but unlikely,
because several factors prevent the success of a would-be Ukrainian Ivanishvili. The conflict
in Ukraine is felt more sharply because in 2014 it lost territories that it had controlled all
the years of independence, while Georgia lost control over Abkhazia in 1993 and over South
Ossetia even earlier. The August 2008 war only showed the impossibility of regaining these
territories. But the most important thing is that, whereas Georgia was an obvious loser in that
war, Ukraine has some positive dynamics, which was discussed above. In addition, differences
between Georgians and Russians have always been obvious, whereas for Kiev the current conflict
is a way to recode a large part of the population and form the nation on the basis of the
thesis that "Ukraine is different from Russia." Finally, the evolution of Georgia should not be
exaggerated. Diplomatic relations between Tbilisi and Moscow have not been restored, while
relations between Kiev and Moscow have never been broken off. Although Georgia has toned down
its anti-Russian rhetoric, it keeps moving towards the Euro-Atlantic structures.
Ukraine is moving in the same direction. Its problems will obviously grow in the near
future. Already now, due to migration, the population of the territory now controlled by
Kiev is less than 30 million people (judging by bread consumption statistics).
This means it has decreased by more than 40 percent since 1991. In addition, the
largest, postwar, generation is now entering the mortality age, while the generation of
newborns is the smallest over the years of independence. Yet, the territory of the country has
retained its geopolitical value and, regardless of whether Ukraine is granted formal NATO
membership or not, American troops can be permanently deployed in its territory during the
current Cold War -- or, more precisely, their presence can be broadened, because several
thousand NATO troops, half of them Americans, have been involved in military exercises
permanently held at the Yavorovo test range since the spring of 2015.
As regards Ukraine's admission to NATO, many Western European countries oppose this
option. On the other hand, they have not proposed any detailed plan for Ukraine's non-aligned
status. Objectively, such status would be best guaranteed by the specifics of the state's
internal structure, when accession to a military alliance would require a consensus of the
regions. In an interview with the Atlantic magazine in November 2016, Henry Kissinger
echoed this idea: "I favor an independent Ukraine that is militarily non-aligned. If you remove
the two Donbass regions from eastern Ukraine, you guarantee that Ukraine is permanently hostile
to Russia, since it becomes dominated by its Western part, which only joined Russia in the
1940s. The solution, then, is to find a way to give these units a degree of autonomy that gives
them a voice in military entanglements, but otherwise keeps them under the governance of
Ukraine." (Goldberg, 2016)
But since this voice remains solitary, the negative attitude of Western European countries
to Ukraine's accession to NATO is only a short-term tactical choice which may change later.
It is also unlikely that the implementation of the Minsk Agreement will help create the
model described by Kissinger, because a "voice in military entanglements" is a trait of a
confederation. Meanwhile, the status of individual Donbass regions, as defined by the above
agreement, is far even from that provided for in a federation. Rather, it is similar to the
limited autonomy of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, which they received under the Erdut agreement.
Therefore, even if the Minsk Agreement is implemented, which is unlikely, the existing
political regime in Ukraine will hardly change.
As regards Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, in a situation where they cannot change
this regime through elections, they will try to adapt to the existing reality, at least
outwardly.
The described inertial scenario is basic and most probable. However, it is not the only
possible one due to the weakness of the Ukrainian state (in particular, due to the growing
influence of right-wing radicals who may obtain parallel power), the unstable situation in the
world, and the unpredictability of Russia's policy in the long term, as Moscow may decide that
Kiev has crossed certain red lines established by it. If this state collapses due to
external factors, the identity of a large part of its present population may change very
quickly, as evidenced by the experience of the 17th century and recent decades.
Alexei V. Popov is an expert with the Kiev Center of Political Studies and
Conflictology
"... an essential warning against a continuation of the frivolous and dangerous policies of regime change adopted by the West after the end of the Cold War ..."
"... The result is both a sophisticated, multilevel analysis of how and why Ukraine emerged as the key hotspot in East-West relations, and an indispensable guide for those wishing to understand the origins of the New Cold War. ..."
"... Gordon M. Hahn challenges simplistic and often misleading narratives by the media and politicians and provides a corroboration that the Maidan massacre was a false flag mass killing ..."
"... They show Maidan's quasi-revolution was driven by international geopolitics, supporting counterposed Western and Russian "civilizationist" beliefs, and deep divisions within Ukrainian society itself, not a wellspring of widespread aspiration to Western-style democracy. ..."
Review "Ukraine's 2013-2014 revolution, its civil war, and Russia's annexation of the
Crimea have been succeeded by newer crises, but political analyst Hahn uses detailed reportage
and geopolitical theory to argue for their long-term significance, presenting Ukraine as a
troubling turning point in Russo-American relations and a case study of how democratization
efforts can go awry...with Russia atop American headlines to an extent not seen since the end
of the Cold War, [this book] will be a strong addition to global studies collections" --
Booklist
"It was not only Ukraine that went over the edge in 2014, but the whole European security
system disintegrated, while a 'new cold war' chills relations between the great powers. In this
masterful study, Gordon Hahn examines how Ukraine's internal divisions combined with external
lines of fragmentation to create an explosive mix, which in turn intensified domestic
conflicts. The result is an internationalized civil conflict, with catastrophic consequences
for Ukraine and the world. Hahn is one of the few scholars with the knowledge and discernment
to make sense of it all. His impressively well-researched and well-written book is essential
reading."--Richard Sakwa, University of Kent
"This impressively researched and strongly argued book is an essential corrective to the
myths that have been generated concerning the crisis in Ukraine, and an essential warning
against a continuation of the frivolous and dangerous policies of regime change adopted by the
West after the end of the Cold War ." --Anatol Lieven, Professor, Georgetown University in
Qatar and author of Ukraine and Russia, A Fraternal Rivalry
Ukraine Over the Edge is a rigorous analysis of the cultural, historical, and
intellectual origins of the Ukrainian crisis. While stressing that blame for the latest phase
of this crisis is shared all around, Hahn traces its domestic origins to the militancy of the
opposition to president Yanukovych, and its international origins to NATO expansion, which he
regards as militarized democracy-promotion. The result is both a sophisticated, multilevel
analysis of how and why Ukraine emerged as the key hotspot in East-West relations, and an
indispensable guide for those wishing to understand the origins of the New Cold War.
"--Nicolai N. Petro, Silvia-Chandley Professor of Peace Studies and Nonviolence, University of
Rhode Island
" Ukraine Over the Edge is a very useful contribution to understanding origins and
key developments of the crisis in this important European and post-Soviet country. Gordon
M. Hahn challenges simplistic and often misleading narratives by the media and politicians and
provides a corroboration that the Maidan massacre was a false flag mass killing ." --Ivan
Katchanovski, University of Ottawa About the AuthorGordon M. Hahn is an advisory
board member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, and at the American Institute of
Geostrategy (AIGEO), Los Angeles; a contributing expert for Russia Direct, and a senior
researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), San Jose, California.
He lives in Mountain View, California.
Preface
As I read, listened and watched Western sources on the events surrounding the mass
demonstrations on central square in Kiev during winter 2013-2014, a sense of deja vu
became undeniable. Having studied the nature of terrorism in Russia's North Caucasus, the
causes and course of the August 2008 Georgian-Russian war, and other events involving Russia, I
had seen a pattern of misrepresentation of these events by most Western, especially American,
media, academia and government sources. There was a clear sense that this pattern was being
repeated with regard to the events on the Maidan. Hence, I decided to investigate matters for
myself and have come to a distinctly different conclusion regarding them than that imparted to
the Western public.
Two years after the Maidan "revolution of dignity," it was already clear that the
Western-backed overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich was not entirely a revolution
and was ultimately in vain regardless of how one conceptualizes the events surrounding the
fall-winter 2013-2014 demonstrations and violence on Kiev's Maidan. The movement was based
initially on middle class opposition to corruption and soft authoritarianism and support for
European integration. Ultimately, the nascent pro-democratic revolution was hijacked by
neofascist elements that infiltrated the Maidan protests, overthrew the government, and then
were themselves superseded by several key oligarchs, who always have thrived under the
post-Soviet ancient regime. Thus, corruption and criminality have increased rather than
decreased, European integration has stalled, and authoritarianism is not just in the corridors
of power but on the streets under the yoke of roaming bands of neofascist groups seeking to
foment a second, truly "national revolution."
Despite the all-too-numerous adepts of democratization and democratic transition, this is
not the first, nor is it likely to be the last time when the West has misunderstood processes
it has hoped for, encouraged, and often funded and helped to organize. The "Arab Spring" is
only the most recent set of cases in point. Predictably, that spring's various revolutions
became an Islamist winter spread across parts of the Middle East and North Africa, except in
Egypt -- where a counterrevolution returned the status quo ante.
Similarly, in 1991 the adepts of democratic transitions or "transitology" got it wrong. Few
post-Soviet states became democracies because the "democratic revolution" that overthrew the
reformist late Soviet regime of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was assumed to be a "revolution
from below" led by societal opposition forces bent on living in a democracy. This was true in
the Baltic republics, but in most cases the elements of democratic revolution from below were
subsumed by a mix of less civil state bureaucrat-led revolutions from above and nationalist-led
revolutions from below. In Russia, the revolution was largely one led from above by the Russian
President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian state apparatus against the partially reformed but
crumbling central Soviet state and regime. In Central Asia and elsewhere, there was simply a
change of signboards, rebranding for still very authoritarian regimes. The partial exception is
Kyrgyzstan's tulip revolutions and counterrevolutions, which also had strong elements from
above. Thus, it is no surprise that both Ukraine's 2004 Orange revolution, as 1 noted at the
time, and the 2013-2014 Maidan "revolution of dignity," as I predicted, proved to be something
less than the democratic revolutions "transitologists" hailed.
In addition to elements of revolution from below, the Maidan revolt also has elements of
revolution from above led by some state officials and state-tied oligarchs. Moreover, the
revolution from below was under considerable influence from national chauvinist,
ultranationalist, and neofascist groups. The Maidan ultranationalist-oligarchic regime now has
little popular support and few accomplishments in democratization, and is little different from
the previous, except for a marked increase in western Ukrainian neofascism (both in the
corridors of power and on the streets) and a near catastrophic economy. Revolutions are indeed
unwieldy things, not very manageable once unleashed.
The international geopolitical consequences have been even more deleterious. A deepening
Russian-Western confrontation over Ukraine risks recreating a bipolar "world split apart," with
Russia more inclined than ever to forge alliances with regimes opposed to American and Western
power.
This book is dedicated to clarifying these events and their consequences, something that is
imperative given the misleading government and media characterizations of them. This study is
based on Western, Ukrainian and Russian sources, including media reports, reliable primary and
secondary Internet sources, and official documents of governments and international
organizations.
They show Maidan's quasi-revolution was driven by international geopolitics, supporting
counterposed Western and Russian "civilizationist" beliefs, and deep divisions within Ukrainian
society itself, not a wellspring of widespread aspiration to Western-style democracy.
So most folks never heard of a guy named Hillel. He was a Baghdad Jew who moved to Judea
about 60 years before Christ was born.
His great influence on Judaism was a novel invention to get around the Jubilee which many
civilizations employed snd was part of Judaism Mosaic Law. Basically every 7 years debts were
cancelled to prevent the elites from accumulating all the land and wealth and enslaving the
bottom 99% and causing rebellion. Much of the debt forgiven was owed to the state in the form
of taxes but individuals and business also were indebted to money lenders . Debt of
individuals acquired to pay taxes, farm, etc was forgiven by the Jubilee. Business /Merchant
debts had to be repaid
The rabbiis of the Pharisees under the suggestion of Hillel the Elder, created a loophole
in Jewish law, in which a legal document would accompany the interest-free loans (charging
interest to fellow Jews was forbidden in the Torah) issued by individuals that stated that
the loans were to be transferred to the courts as the law of remission does not apply In this
case.
It was called a Prosbul.
This led to great unrest among Jews and non Jews alike. This unrest led to a Jewish
activist named Jesus leading a protest against the Pharisees and the money lenders. Michael
Hudson has a theory backed up by historical documents in the original Aramaic,Hebrew and
Greek that Mosaic Law is mostly about the prohibitions of the sins related to debt and the
sinful practices of creditors to secure repayment. Translations into English and other
languages have obscured this.
Christianity was formed after Jesus was executed to protect the money lenders .
Unfortunately the Romans were pro creditor and then Constantine hijacked the religion a
couple of centuries later , and aside from a prohibition on usury by the Roman Church the
Jubilee was no more. When the Roman Empire fell the Byzantine Emperor reinstated the Jubilee
from 7th-10th Century and abandoned this . I imagine this wad due to the Islamic Wars that
required external loans to finance at interest.
Judaism still use the prosbul today , at least in Orthodox , to escape the Jubilee called
for in Mosaic Law . That applied only for loans to Jews in any event. Prohibitions of usury
in the Christian world ended pretty much with the Reformation and Calvinism. Even so in the
US their were limits on usury in many US states until early 1980's when neoliberalism crushed
that. Now the poor get charged as much as 30% on credit card debt while earning 2% on savings
and they cant even declare bankruptcy like Trump did 6 times
Islamic banking is interest free though under Sharia Law. "Loans are equity-based,
asset-backed. In lieu of interest the banks rely on cost-plus financing (murabaha),
profit-sharing (mudaraba), leasing (ijara), partnership (musharaka) and forward sale
(bay'salam).
"This prohibition is based on arguments of social justice, equality, and property rights.
Islam encourages the earning of profits but forbids the charging of interest because profits,
determined ex post, symbolize successful entrepreneurship and creation of additional wealth
whereas interest, determined ex ante, is a cost that is accrued irrespective of the outcome
of business operations and may not create wealth if there are business losses. Social justice
demands that borrowers and lenders share rewards as well as losses in an equitable fashion
and that the process of wealth accumulation and distribution in the economy be fair and
representative of true productivity.
"Risk sharing. Because interest is prohibited, suppliers of funds become investors instead of
creditors. The provider of financial capital and the entrepreneur share business risks in
return for shares of the profits."
"Money as "potential" capital. Money is treated as "potential" capital -- that is, it
becomes actual capital only when it joins hands with other resources to undertake a
productive activity. Islam recognizes the time value of money, but only when it acts as
capital, not when it is "potential" capital."
"Prohibition of speculative behavior. An Islamic financial system discourages hoarding and
prohibits transactions featuring extreme uncertainties, gambling, and risks."
So maybe the war against Islam has another component?
Getting back to Jesus. Hudson says the Pharisees decided that Jesus' growing popularity
was a threat to their authority and wealth.
"They said 'we've got to get rid of this guy and rewrite Judaism and make it about sex
instead of a class war', which is really what the whole Old Testament is about,"
"That was that was where Christianity got perverted. Christianity turned so
anti-Jesus, it was the equivalent of the American Tea Party, applauding wealth and even
greed, Ayn-Rand style."
"Over the last 1000 years the Catholic Church has been saying it's noble to be
poor. But Jesus never said it was good to be poor. What he said was that rich people are
greedy and corrupt. That's what Socrates was saying, as well as Aristotle and the Stoic Roman
philosophers, the biblical prophets in Isaiah."
"Neither did Jesus say that it was good to be poor because it made you noble.
"What Jesus did say is that say if you have money, you should share it with other
people."
"American Fundamentalist Christians say don't share a penny. King Jesus is
going to make you rich. Don't tax millionaires. Jesus may help me win the lottery. Tax poor
people whom the Lord has left behind – no doubt for their sins. There's nothing about
the Jubilee Year here."
Hudson has a book coming out next week on the subject
So Iran has no offensive air force or any Nukes but the Israelis with their air superiority and nukes are making Iran - enemy
#1. How very - American - of them.
"... Damascus and Moscow welcomed Iran's critical contribution to defeating the opposition and giving Washington and its allies a diplomatic bloody nose in the bargain. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledges that Iran's presence in Syria -- at the invitation of the regime -- is legitimate and that it would be "unrealistic" to demand its ouster. ..."
"... But instead of viewing the end of the war as an opportunity to lessen Iran's value to the regime and to reduce its footprint in the country, Washington is continuing heedlessly with failed policies created for an environment that no longer exists. As long as the fighting continues and the regime's efforts to reassert sovereignty over the entire country are frustrated by U.S. deployments in the northeast and southeast, Iran's military presence in the country is secure. Likewise, Washington shows no sign of reconsidering international sanctions against the regime, which also forces Syria into the arms of Tehran. ..."
"... A colorblind appraisal of the effects of U.S. policy in Iraq and now Syria would suggest that Washington is either brilliantly in cahoots with Iran to the latter's benefit or is being outplayed by weaker but more clear-eyed players. My vote goes squarely to the latter. ..."
"... Confronted with the disintegration of its diplomatic and military strategy, the Trump administration is reduced to playing spoiler, obstructing the inevitable restoration of the regime's sovereignty over the country and continuing the punishing sanctions that have removed the battered but resilient Syrian private sector from international capital and commercial markets. This policy fails on two fronts -- it creates more gratuitous misery for the Syrian people and it undermines the stated U.S. objective of reducing and removing Iranian and Hezbollah influence in the country. Indeed, continuing to pursue the current policies will leave the U.S. isolated among friends (Jordan and Israel) as well as frenemy Russia, and will postpone rather than speed the day that Iran leaves Syria. ..."
Washington has been on the offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran for close to half
a century. Largely as a result, Iran, a rounding error in the superpower sweepstakes, has gone
from strength to strength, challenging American power throughout the region, most notably in
Iraq and Syria.
U.S.-led regime change in Iraq created Tehran's historic opportunity to return to Baghdad
for the first time since the creation of the Ottoman caliphate in the 15th century. This
unscripted but entirely predictable outcome was no mean feat, all the more so for being the
opposite of what Washington intended.
The Bush administration knew that it no longer wanted Saddam in the chair, but could not
think beyond this one, giant, uncharted leap into the future. Iran has a far greater and more
lasting interest in the affairs of its neighbor and often bitter enemy. As a consequence, the
mullahs are playing a far longer, and more successful, game.
The legacy of unintended consequences continues to define Washington's policy towards Iraq a
generation after the first Gulf War ended. And so too with Syria. In both countries, U.S.
shortcomings have created a historic opportunity for Iran to enhance its influence in Arab
arenas that when not actively hostile to it (Iraq) are at best lukewarm (Syria).
When asked about Syria's relationship with Iran, Farouk Shara'a, longtime foreign minister
and vice president, once explained to a mutual friend, "You don't have to love the woman you
are sleeping with."
Syria has been in bed with Iran for decades. Saddam's war against Iran in the '80s, the rise
of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and most recently the war against the Assad regime in Syria, have
conspired to throw these two unlikely allies into a cold embrace.
Washington has been oblivious to this essentially ambivalent Syrian attitude towards Iran,
and remains equally so to the opportunities it creates to reduce Iran's footprint in postwar
Syria. Now that the war is winding down, the value of Iran's military contribution to Syria is
declining. In parallel, Syria's interest in reducing the power of its erstwhile Iranian and
Russian friends over its destiny increases.
Damascus and Moscow welcomed Iran's critical contribution to defeating the opposition
and giving Washington and its allies a diplomatic bloody nose in the bargain. Russian foreign
minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledges that Iran's presence in Syria -- at the invitation of the
regime -- is legitimate and that it would be "unrealistic" to demand its ouster.
But while Iran's wartime contribution proved critical to victory, neither Assad nor Putin
was displeased to distance Iranian-backed elements from the recent battle front in the south.
Neither has an interest in enabling Tehran to pursue a postwar Syrian agenda towards Lebanon
and Israel. Nor is either enamored with Iran's continuing efforts to reshape the Syrian
military in its image. On these important issues, Iran stands all but alone against an
invisible, de facto coalition that includes Washington and the EU alongside Israel, Moscow, and
the Assad regime itself.
But instead of viewing the end of the war as an opportunity to lessen Iran's value to
the regime and to reduce its footprint in the country, Washington is continuing heedlessly with
failed policies created for an environment that no longer exists. As long as the fighting
continues and the regime's efforts to reassert sovereignty over the entire country are
frustrated by U.S. deployments in the northeast and southeast, Iran's military presence in the
country is secure. Likewise, Washington shows no sign of reconsidering international sanctions
against the regime, which also forces Syria into the arms of Tehran.
A colorblind appraisal of the effects of U.S. policy in Iraq and now Syria would suggest
that Washington is either brilliantly in cahoots with Iran to the latter's benefit or is being
outplayed by weaker but more clear-eyed players. My vote goes squarely to the latter.
Apart from the lingering campaign against ISIS, in every other respect the U.S. effort in
Syria is imploding. Washington under Obama and now Trump has been forced to uneasily
acknowledge the regime's staying power. It has now been reduced to bickering over the details
of Syrian constitutional reform in the postwar era, a waste of time if ever there was one.
Lately, the U.S. secretary of state, from his respected perch, has personally threatened
Iran's key military strategist and architect of its advances in Iraq and Syria, Qassem
Sulemani, a sure sign that the policymaking process at State is frozen.
In the field, Washington has ignominiously abandoned allies in the southern front. And in
the northeast, the Kurds have embarked on the road back to Damascus, imperiling Washington's
deployment there.
Confronted with the disintegration of its diplomatic and military strategy, the Trump
administration is reduced to playing spoiler, obstructing the inevitable restoration of the
regime's sovereignty over the country and continuing the punishing sanctions that have removed
the battered but resilient Syrian private sector from international capital and commercial
markets. This policy fails on two fronts -- it creates more gratuitous misery for the Syrian
people and it undermines the stated U.S. objective of reducing and removing Iranian and
Hezbollah influence in the country. Indeed, continuing to pursue the current policies will
leave the U.S. isolated among friends (Jordan and Israel) as well as frenemy Russia, and will
postpone rather than speed the day that Iran leaves Syria.
Geoffrey Aronson is chairman and co-founder of The Mortons Group and a non-resident
scholar at the Middle East Institute.
A colorblind appraisal of the effects of U.S. policy in Iraq and now Syria would suggest
that Washington is either brilliantly in cahoots with Iran to the latter's benefit or is
being outplayed by weaker but more clear-eyed players. My vote goes squarely to the
latter.
US foreign policy is controlled by the Israeli lobby and to a lesser extent, by the Saudi
lobby. The illegal and unprovoked attacks by the US on Iraq, Libya and Syria were done at the
behest of these lobbies. The only country that has benefited from all this bloodshed is
Israel, which now dominates the Middle East.
Since this obvious truth cannot be said out aloud, we need to pretend we don't know who is
behind all the mayhem in the Middle East, like this pointless article does.
The writer can't see the forest for the trees. Successive U.S. administrations have behaved
irresponsibly to enhance Israel's position in the guise of bring "democracy" to the region.
Washington's failures have created ongoing misery in Iraq, a failed state in Libya and the
destruction of the ancient land of Syria.
The U.S. continues to
pretend it had no role in the creation of the huge refugee problem that followed its
interventions in Libya and Syria.
No lessons learned, the folly is being played out daily in Yemen where the Pentagon is
leading the a campaign of death and destruction alongside its "democratic" allies, the Salman
clan of Arabia and the sheikhs of the Persian Gulf minnow petrostates.
"the stated U.S. objective of reducing and removing Iranian and Hezbollah influence "
I've yet to see a compelling reason for this "stated objective". If you want to argue that
it's an American interest because the Israel Lobby wants it, well, OK, there are politicians
who can be bribed to do Israel's will, but no real American would agree.
One of these days an American president will make an "opening to Iran" as Nixon once made
one to China. Surely we can bury the hatchet with Iran for the sake of a grand bargain that
accomplishes America's one real interest in the Middle East, which is to free ourselves of the
various parasites who entangle us in their messes, and get the hell out of there. Some of us
hoped that Trump might be that president, but it wasn't meant to be.
"The U.S. continues to
pretend it had no role in the creation of the huge refugee problem that followed its
interventions in Libya and Syria."
Which is ridiculous. When you bomb, invade, and arm insurgencies in people's countries, a
lot of people run away. Everybody knows that.
In the case of our bombing, invading, and/or arming insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, and Syria, a lot of people ran away.
Millions ran into Turkey. Millions more ran through Turkey into Greece and then up through
the Balkans into other NATO countries. And still more came up from Africa and sailed away from
the shores of ruined Libya to our NATO allies Italy, Spain, and France.
We did this. Everybody knows we did it. It's absurd to deny it. What's worse is that many of
the allies destabilized by the refugees warned or even begged us not to start those wars. With
no American interest at stake, no real risk assessment, and no exit strategy formulated, we did
it anyway.
Much simpler explanation: For decades, the United States has been the loyal servant of Israel,
and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia, faithfully carrying out its masters' every dictate.
As an unintended consequence of Israeli/Saudi policy, Iran has grown much stronger.
The only reason that the US foreign policy establishment is rushing headlong into a war with
Iran is because Israel and Saudi Arabia are terrified of the Iran that they have created.
"... IS THE LEASH NOW OFF THE 'OTHER CIA?' https://southfront.org/is-the-leash-now-off-the-other-cia/ ..."
"... Under Donald Trump, who is on record favoring CIA kidnapping and torture programs, the CIA has been given a green light to carry out "targeted assassinations." ..."
Under Donald Trump, who is on record favoring CIA kidnapping and torture programs, the CIA has been given a green light to
carry out "targeted assassinations."
Although most of these targeted kills have been carried out by drone attacks in Yemen, Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Somalia, where civilian deaths from "collateral damage" are estimated to be well over three hundred, recent events
point to the CIA's return to the "bad old days," when it engaged in a global program of assassinating political leaders.
Look up Rostislav Ishenko's latest excellent piece yesterday:
I did, and as usual Ishenko takes an oblique approach that shines a light into obscure but
critical corners.
What an eye opener this one is.
Not sure how much was lost in translation, but if I understood correctly the Russians are
massing forces in the Western District, not because they fear an attack from NATO, or plan to
attack Europe but to rescue Europe from a conflagration that will be sparked in Ukraine. That
it was drifting into failed state status is well known, but that a religious war is in the
offing was utterly unknown to me, and I suspect to most others here.
That in turn shines a light on why Poland and the Baltics are begging for US/NATO troops
as well, and at least partially why US/NATO is delivering. As Ukraine drifts into chaos, its
neighbours, being aware of its history of extreme violence and atrocity are preparing
themselves for the spillover. They have no desire to relive the decade+ blood orgy that
erupted in the middle of the 20th C centred on Ukraine (where, IMHO, the real Holocaust
happened).
Overwhelming force applied at an overwhelming pace is the best way of dealing with such an
outbreak, and the Russians are the only party able to deliver. US/NATO forces can be expected
to roar around in their APCs avoiding trouble and then claim credit in accordance with
Western military tradition. Meanwhile, the Russians will go into mopping up the
leftovers.
Makes a lot of sense if Ishchenko's read of the situation is right. It probably has a
bigger impact on Dunford's and Gerasimov's meeting than the USM "going home".
Whew!
PS: Yes, I was aware of the Russian central bank selling off its USTs. With the Petro-Yuan
and Western sanctions now in full swing, it really doesn't need $100B's worth to manage its
U$ denominated imports.
Corporate Media's About-Face on Ukraine's Neo-Nazis July 5, 2018 •
59 Comments
U.S. corporate media spent years dismissing the role of neo-Nazis in Ukraine's 2014 coup but
it is suddenly going through a conversion, as Daniel Lazare reports.
By Daniel Lazare Special to Consortium News
Last month a freelance journalist named Joshua
Cohen published an
article in The Washington Post about the Ukraine's growing neo-Nazi threat.
Despite a gratuitous swipe at Russia for allegedly exaggerating the problem (which it hasn't),
the piece was fairly accurate.
Entitled "Ukraine's ultra-right militias are challenging the government to a showdown," it
said that fascists have gone on a rampage while the ruling clique in Kiev closes its eyes for
the most part and prays that the problem somehow goes away on its own.
Thus, a group calling itself C14 (for the fourteen-word ultra-right motto, "We must secure
the existence of our people and a future for white children") not only beat up a socialist
politician and celebrated Hitler's birthday by stabbing an antiwar activist, but bragged about
it on its website. Other ultra-nationalists, Cohen says, have stormed the Lvov and Kiev city
councils and "assaulted or disrupted" art exhibits, anti-fascist demos, peace and gay-rights
events, and a Victory Day parade commemorating the victory over Hitler in 1945.
Yet nothing has happened to stop this. President Petro Poroshenko could order a crackdown,
but hasn't for reasons that should be obvious. The U.S.-backed "Euromaidan" uprising not only
drove out former president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, who had won an OSCE-certified
election, but tore the country in two, precisely because ultra-rightists like C14 were in the
lead.
When resistance to the U.S.-backed coup
broke out in Crimea and parts of the country's largely Russian-speaking east, the base of
Yanukovych voters, civil war ensued. But because the Ukrainian army had all but collapsed, the
new, coup government had no one to rely on other than the neo-fascists who had helped propel it
to power.
So an alliance was hatched between pro-western oligarchs at the top – Forbesputs
Poroshenko's net worth at a cool $1 billion – and neo-Nazi enforcers at the bottom.
Fascists may not be popular. Indeed, Dmytro Yarosh, the fire-breathing leader of a white-power
coalition known as Right Sector, received less than one percent of the vote when he
ran for president in May 2014.
But the state is so weak and riddled with so many ultra-rightists in key positions –
Andriy Parubiy, founder of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine, is speaker of the
parliament, while ultra-rightist Arsen Avakov is minister of the interior – that the path
before them is clear and unobstructed. As Cohen points out, the result is government passivity
on one hand and a rising tide of ultra-right violence on the other. In the earlier stages of
the civil war, for instance, the rightwing extremists burned more than 40 people alive in a
labor union building in Odessa, a horrific incident downplayed by Western media.
Cohen's article may have Washington Post readers scratching their heads for the
simple reason that the paper has long said the opposite. Since Euromaidan, the Post
has toed the official Washington line
that Vladimir Putin has exaggerated the role of the radical right in order to discredit the
anti-Yanukovych revolt and legitimize his own alleged interference.
Sure, anti-Yanukovych forces had festooned the Kiev town hall with a white supremacist
banner, a Confederate flag , and a giant image of Stepan Bandera , a Nazi
collaborator whose forces killed thousands of Jews during the German occupation and as many as
100,000 Poles. And yes, they staged a 15,000-strong torchlight parade in Bandera's honor and
scrawled an SS symbol on a toppled
statue of Lenin. They also destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who
had fought on what Bandera supporters regard as the wrong side of World War II, that is, with
the Soviets and against the Axis.
But so-called responsible, mainstream journalists are supposed to avert their eyes to avoid
being tarred as a "
useful idiot " whom Putin supposedly employs to advance his "anti-American agenda." Ten
days after Yanukovych's departure, the Post dutifully
assured its readers that Russian reports of "hooligans and fascists" had "no basis in
reality."
A week or so later, it
said "the new government, though peppered with right-wing politicians, is led primarily by
moderate, pro-European politicians." A few weeks after that, it
described Bandera as no more than "controversial" and quoted a Kiev businessman as saying:
"The Russians want to call him a fascist, but I feel he was a hero for our country. Putin is
using him to try to divide us."
Thus, the Post and other corporate media continued to do its duty by
attacking Putin for plainly saying "the forces backing Ukraine's government in Kiev are
fascists and neo-Nazis." But who was wrong ?
The New York Times was no better. It
assailed Russia for hurling "harsh epithets" like "neo-Nazi," and
blamed the Russian leader for "scaremongering" by attributing Yanukovych's ouster to
"nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and anti-Semites." The Guardian 's Luke Harding
–
a leading Putin basher –
said of the far-right Svoboda Party:
"Over the past decade the party appears to have mellowed, eschewing xenophobia, academic
commentators suggest. On Monday, the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, said he had
been 'positively impressed' by Svoboda's evolution in opposition and by its behavior in the
Rada, Ukraine's parliament. 'They have demonstrated their democratic bona fides,' the
ambassador asserted."
This is the party whose founder, Oleh Tyahnybok,
said in a 2004 speech that "a Moscow-Jewish mafia" was running the Ukraine and that
Bandera's followers "fought against the Muscovites, Germans, Jews and other enemies who wanted
to take away our Ukrainian state." Had the leopard really changed its spots, according to
Pyatt? Or was it simply a matter of America not giving a damn as long as Svoboda joined the
fight to encircle Russia and advance NATO's drive to the east?
As someone named Marx once observed , "Who you gonna believe, me or your
own two eyes?" As far as Ukraine was concerned, the answer for the corporate press came from
the U.S. State Department. If Foggy Bottom said that Ukrainian neo-Nazism was a figment of
Russia's imagination, then that's what it was, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
Someday, historians will look back on Euromaidan Ukraine as one of the looniest periods in
western journalism – except, of course, for all the ones that have followed. But if one
had to choose the looniest story of all, one that best reflects the abject toadyism of the
reporting classes, it would have to be "Why Jews and Ukrainians Have Become Unlikely Allies," a
1,400-word article
that ran on the Post -owned Foreign Policy website in May 2014. Four years
later, it stands as a model of how not to write about an all-important political crisis.
Cohen's Conversion
Tyahnybok: 'Moscow-Jewish mafia' is running Ukraine.
The piece begins with the usual hand-wringing about Svoboda and Right Sector and expresses
remorse that the latter still venerates the "controversial" Bandera, whose followers "fought on
the side of the Nazis from 1944 until the end of World War II." (Actually, they welcomed the
Germans from the start and, despite rocky relations with the Slav-hating Nazis, continued to
work with them throughout the occupation.)
But then it gets down to business by asserting that as bad as Ukrainian nationalists may be,
Russia is doubly worse. "Despite the substantial presence of right wing nationalists on the
Maidan during the revolution," it says, "many in Ukraine's Jewish community resent being used
by Putin in his propaganda war." The proof is an open letter signed by 21 Ukrainian Jewish
leaders asserting that the real danger was Moscow.
"We know that the political opposition consists of various groups, including some that are
nationalistic," the letter declared. "But even the most marginal of them do not demonstrate
anti-Semitism or other forms of xenophobia. And we certainly know that our very few
nationalists are well-controlled by civil society and the new Ukrainian government –
which is more than can be said for the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security
services."
This was music to Washington's ears. But if neo-Nazis are free of "anti-Semitism or other
forms of xenophobia," how does one explain the white-power symbols in the Kiev town hall? If
nationalists were "very few" in number, why did journalists need to explain them away? If
Russian security forces really encouraged neo-Nazis, where were the torchlight parades and
portraits of Bandera-like collaborators hanging from public buildings in Moscow?
The article might have noted that Josef Zissels, the Jewish community leader who organized
the letter, is a provocative figure who has long maintained close relations with Ukraine's far
right. A self-styled
Zhydobanderivets – a word that roughly translates as "Kike follower of Bandera"
– he has since infuriated other Jewish leaders by criticizing California Congressman Ro
Khanna for sending a letter to the State Department asking that pressure be brought on the
governments of Poland and Ukraine to combat Holocaust revisionism in their countries.
Forty-one Jewish leaders were so angry, in fact, that they sent out
a letter of their own thanking Khannna for his efforts, expressing "deep concern at the
rise of anti-Semitic incidents and expressions of xenophobia and intolerance, including attacks
on Roma communities," and "strongly proclaim[ing] that Mr. Iosif Zissels and the organization
VAAD do not represent the Jews of Ukraine." A Jewish community leader in Russia was so outraged
by the pro-Bandera apologetics of Zissels and a Ukrainian-Jewish oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky
that he
said he wanted to hang both men "in Dnepropetrovsk in front of the Golden Rose Synagogue
until they stop breathing."
So Foreign Policy used a highly dubious source to whitewash Ukraine's growing
neo-Nazi presence and absolve it of anti-Semitism. As crimes against the truth go, this is
surely one of the worst. But now that the problem has gotten too big for even the corporate
media to ignore, overnight muckrakers like Joshua Cohen are seeing to it that getting away with
such offenses will no longer be so easy. Before his abrupt about-face, the author of that
misleading Foreign Policy piece was Joshua Cohen.
Daniel Lazare is the author ofThe Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is
Paralyzing Democracy(Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American
politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications fromThe NationtoLe Monde Diplomatique, and his articles about the Middle East,
terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites asJacobinand The American Conservative .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
mike k , July 6, 2018 at 4:49 pm
The leaders of Israel who sell weapons to the Nazis in Ukraine, are no better than those
Nazis.
Susan Sunflower , July 6, 2018 at 1:37 pm
for those having Alice In Wonderland whiplash, yes the USA was funding the Ukranian
neonazis Azov Brigade before Congress banned the funding in March 2018.
same old "syrian playbook" wrt to enemy-of-my-memory bull .
rosemerry , July 6, 2018 at 10:12 am
The two-hour documentary "Putin" shows in an interview Pres. Putin explaining his
government's cooperating with the Western- supported Ukrainian government for four years
(because they were neighbors and had many links) which he considered normal behavior.
However, once the 2014 election brought in a more "Moscow-friendly" team to govern Ukraine,
the USA began its plans to overthrow it and we see all the consequences shown in this
article.
The tacit support given by the centre-left to the installation of the regime in Kiev
should give them cause for concern writes Frank.
Politics in the Ukraine can only be understood by reference to its history and ethnic and
cultural make-up – a make-up criss-crossed by lasting and entrenched ethnic, cultural
and political differences. The country has long been split into the northern and western
Ukraine, where Ukrainian is the official and everyday lingua franca, and the more
industrialised regions of the east and south where a mixture of Russian speaking Ukrainians
and ethnic Russians reside. Additionally, there has long been Hungarian and Romanian
settlement in the west of the country, and a particularly important Polish presence, whose
unofficial capital, Lviv, was once the Polish city of Lwow. The Russian Orthodox Church is
the predominant form of Christianity in the East, whilst in the west the Christian tradition
tends towards Roman Catholicism.
Politically the Eastern and Southern Oblasts (Regions) which includes the cities and
centres of heavy industry, Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhe, Nikolayev, Kherson,
Simferopol and Odessa, have tended to tilt towards Russia whilst the western regions have had
a more western orientation. This has traditionally been reflected in the electoral division
of the country. There is no party which can be considered 'national' in this respect, except
ironically, the old Communist party, which of course is now banned. The major regional
parties have been the Fatherland party of Yulia Tymoshenko (since renamed) and the former
head of government, Arseniy Yatsenyuk as well as the ultra-nationalists predominantly in the
west of the country, and the deposed Victor Yanukovich's Party of the Regions in the East
(now defunct) along with its junior partner in the coalition, the Ukrainian Communist
Party.
However, what is new since the coup in February 2014 there has been the emergence from the
shadows of ultra-nationalist (fascist) parties and movements, with both parliamentary and
extra-parliamentary (i.e.,military) wings. In the main 'Svoboda' or Freedom Party, and the
paramilitaries of 'Right Sector' (Fuhrer: Dimitry Yarosh) who spearheaded the coup in Kiev;
these have been joined or changed their names to inter alia the Radical Party, and Patriots
of the Ukraine; this in addition to the punitive right-wing militias, such as the Azov
Regiment responsible for numerous atrocities in the Don Bas.
Suffice it to say, however, that these political movements and parties did not emerge from
nowhere.
This far-right tradition has been historically very strong in the western Ukraine. The
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was first established in 1929 and brought
together, war veterans, student fraternities, far-right groups and various other disoriented
socially and political flotsam and jetsam under its banner. The OUN took its ideological
position from the writings of one, Dymtro Dontsov, who, like Mussolini had been a socialist,
and who was instrumental in creating an indigenous Ukrainian fascism based upon the usual
mish-mash of writings and theories including Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Sorel, and Charles
Maurras. Dontsov also translated the works of Hitler and Mussolini into Ukrainian.
The OUN was committed to ethnic purity, and relied on violence, assassination and
terrorism, not least against other Ukrainians, to achieve its goal of a totalitarian and
homogeneous nation-state. Assorted enemies and impediments to this goal were Communists,
Russians, Poles, and of course – Jews. Strongly oriented toward the Axis powers OUN
founder Evhen Konovalets (1891-1938) stated that his movement was ''waging war against mixed
marriages'', with Poles, Russians and Jews, the latter which he described as ''foes of our
national rebirth''. Indeed, rabid anti-Semitism has been a leitmotif in the history of
Ukrainian fascism, which we will return to below.
Konovelts himself was assassinated by a KGB hit-man in 1938 after which the movement split
into two wings: (OUN-m) under Andrii Melnyk and, more importantly for our purposes (OUN-b)
under Stepan Bandera. Both wings committed to a new fascist Europe. Upon the German invasion
in June 1941, the OUN-b attempted to establish a Ukrainian satellite state loyal to Nazi
Germany. Stepan Lenkavs'kyi the then chief propagandist of the OUN-b 'government' advocated
the physical destruction of Ukrainian Jewry. OUN-b's 'Prime Minister' Yaroslav Stets'ko, and
deputy to Bandera supported, ''the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing
German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine, barring their assimilation and the
like.''
During the early days of the rapid German advance into the Soviet Union there were some
140 pogroms in the western Ukraine claiming the lives of between 13000-35000 people
(Untermensch, in fascist terminology). In 1943-1944 OUN-b and its armed wing the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armia – UPA) carried out large scale ethnic
cleansing resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands; this was a particularly gruesome
affair in Volhynia where some 90000 Poles and thousands of Jews were murdered. The campaign
of the UPA continued well into the 1950s until it was virtually wiped out by the Soviet
forces.
It should be said that during this early period Bandera himself had been incarcerated by
the German authorities up until his release in 1944, since unlike Bandera they were not
enamoured of an independent Ukrainian state but wanted total control. Bandera was only
released at this late date since the German high command was endeavouring to build up a
pro-German Ukrainian quisling military force to hold up the remorseless advance of the Red
Army. Also pursuant to this it is also worth noting that during this period the 14th Galizian
Waffen SS Division, a military Ukrainian collaborationist formation established by Heinrich
Himmler, was formed to fight the Soviet forces, and yet another being the Nachtingal brigade;
(1) this unit was integrated into the 14th Galizian in due course. It is also interesting to
note, that every year, and up to 2014 commemoration ceremony including veterans of this unit
takes place with a march through Lviv in an evening torchlight parade – genuine Nazi
pastiche. The flag of this unit is not dissimilar to the Peugeot logo, the standing lion, and
can be seen at ultra-nationalist rallies as well as football matches involving Lviv Karparti
FC. There are also numerous statues of Bandera across Ukraine, and since the 2014 coup even
street names bearing the same name. Significantly the UPA have now received political
rehabilitation from the Kiev Junta, with Bandera declared a hero of the Ukraine and the UPA
rebranded as 'freedom fighters.' One particularly splendid statue of Bandera stands proudly
in Lviv and is usually adorned with flowers.
Other novel attractions the capital of Banderestan include 'Jewish themed restaurants' one
such is Kryivka (Hideout or Lurking Hole) where guests have a choice of dishes and whose
dinning walls are decorated with larger than life portraits of Bandera, the toilet with
Russian and Jewish anecdotes. At another Jewish themed restaurant guests are offered black
hats of the sort worn by Hasidim. The menu lists no prices for the dishes; instead, one is
required to haggle over highly inflated prices ''in the Jewish fashion''. Yes, it's all good
clean fun in Lviv. Anti-Semitism also sells. Out of 19 book vendors on the streets of central
Lviv, 16 were openly selling anti-Semitic literature. About 70% of the anti-Semitic
publications in Ukraine are being published by and educational institution called MUAP (The
Inter-Regional Academy of Personnel Management). MAUP is a large, well-connected and
increasingly powerful organization funded from outside anti-Semite sources, and also
connected to White Supremacist groups in the USA and to the David Duke, former Grand Wizard
of the Ku Klux Klan.
(It is one of the ironies of history that if the Zionists in AIPAC and the Washington
neo-con think tanks, and the Labour Party Friends of Israel, were so concerned about
anti-Semitism, they might try looking for it in Lviv. They wouldn't have to search very
far.)
Present day neo-Nazi groupings in Ukraine – Svoboda (Freedom) party and Right Sector
– have been the direct descendants from the prior ideological cesspool. Heading Svoboda
is Oleh Tyahnybok. Although these are separate organizations Tyahnybok's deputy Yuriy
Mykhalchyshyn is the main link between Svoboda's official wing and neo-Nazi militias like
Right Sector. The Social-Nationalist party as it was formerly known chose as its logo an
amended version of the Wolfsangel, a symbol used by many SS divisions on the Eastern front
during the war who in 2004 a celebration of the OUN-UPA, stated in 2004, that ''they fought
against the Muscovite, Germans, Jews and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian
state.'' And further that ''Ukraine was ruled by a Muscovite-Jewish mafia.'' Tyahnybok came
under pressure from the then President, Yuschenko, to retract his inflammatory statements,
which he did, but he then retracted the retraction!
Given the fact that Svoboda was, apart from its stamping grounds in the west, making
little national electoral headway, it was essential to clean up its image and deny its Nazi
past. But this was always going to be difficult since the members of such groups cannot help
the unscripted outbursts and faux pas which they tend to make and which reveals their true
colours. For example, following the conviction and sentencing of John Demjanjuk to five years
in jail for his role as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death
camp, Tyahnybok travelled to Germany and met up with Demjanjuk's lawyer, presenting the death
camp guard as a hero, a victim of persecution ''who is fighting for truth''.
And so it goes on. We can therefore infer that this organization is inveterate fascist. More
disturbing Svoboda has links with the so-called Alliance of National European Movements,
which includes: Nationaldemokraterna of Sweden, Front Nationale of France, Fiamma Tricolore
in Italy, the Hungarian Jobbik and the Belgian National Front. More importantly Svoboda held
several ministerial portfolios in the Kiev administration, and Right Sector swaggers around
Kiev streets with impunity, and/or are being drafted into a National Guard to deal with the
separatist movements in the east, or to beat down anyone who doesn't conform to their Ayran
racial and political ideals.
One would have thought that this mutating revolution in the Ukraine would have drawn
attention of the centre-left to the fact that fascism had gained a vital beachhead in Europe,
and that the danger signals should be flashing. But not a bit of it; a perusal of the
Guardian newspaper quickly reveals that their chief concern has been with a non-existent
'Russian threat'. One of their reporters – or old friend, Luke Harding -described Right
Sector as an ''eccentric group of people with unpleasant right-wing views.'' Priceless! This
must rank as the political understatement of the century. In fact, the Guardian was simply
reiterating the US-imposed neo-conservative foreign policy. But naturally, this is par for
the course.
(1) The Nachtingal brigade, which was later incorporated into the SS Galizien, took part
in a three-day massacre of the Jewish population of Lvov (now Lviv) from 30 June 1941. Roman
Shukhevych was the commander of the Nachtingal and later, in 1943, became commander of the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the "Banderivtsy", or UPA/UIA[5] ), armed henchmen of the fascist
Stepan Bandera, who after the war pretended that they had fought both Nazis and Communists.
Members of the division are also accused of having murdered some 800 residents of the Polish
village of Huta Pieniacka and 44 civilians in the village of Ch?aniów.
Paolo , July 6, 2018 at 7:11 am
Just for the record: the Ukrainians hailed the Nazis as liberators after the Soviets had
let millions of Ukrainians die of hunger in the thirties, a sort of "genocide" that goes
under the name of Holodomor and has officially been recognized by western Parlaments only a
few decades ago. In eastern Ukraine there were no more inhabitants after the Holodomor, and
the Russians imported hundreds of thousand peasants from Russia to get agriculture working
again.
The problems of Ukraine are so deep that fomenting regime change there was a most idiotic
thing to do. Sooner or later the problems will explode, and it will be tough shit. Whoever
helped this regime change should be locked up in some high security jail as far as
possible.
Garrett Connelly , July 6, 2018 at 9:52 am
The big lie is 180° opposite of reality repeated over and over using free corporate
propaganda.
vinnieoh , July 5, 2018 at 3:15 pm
Still scratching my head at the electric last line of Mr. Lazare's piece. I'm mean, I'm
used to "official" organs like WaPo and NYT publishing whatever narrative is most helpful to
whatever pieces are being moved on the chessboard, but for the same "freelance journalist" to
have written both the earlier Foreign Policy piece and the recent WaPo piece is a puzzle to
me.
Does Joshua Cohen just write stuff that goes with the flow (at any particular moment) and
has a good chance of being published (and consequently of himself being paid)?
Or did this
person really have an epiphany, and the scales fell from his eyes? I suspect a third
explanation though what that may be eludes me. One thing is for sure, as a Trump/Putin
meeting gets closer, expect more false "official" narratives concerning both Ukraine and
Syria.
'The U.S.-backed "Euromaidan" uprising not only drove out former president Viktor
Yanukovych in February 2014, who had won an OSCE-certified election, but tore the country in
two, precisely because ultra-rightists like C14 were in the lead But if one had to choose the
looniest story of all, one that best reflects the abject toadyism of the reporting classes,
it would have to be "Why Jews and Ukrainians Have Become Unlikely Allies," a 1,400-word
article that ran on the Post-owned Foreign Policy website in May 2014.'
Here's the thing though: however weird it may sound, there actually DOES seem to exist
some sort of tacit alliance between (some, not all) Jews and Ukrainian Nazis. Even if their
ultimate goals are completely at odds–the Nazis hate the EU, but the Jews mostly want
to join it–they nearly always seem to work together against Russia. It has even been
maintained that the Azov Battalion (one of the all-volunteer Neo-Nazi militias fighting
against the Donbass rebels) was entirely financed for a time by Jewish oligarch Ihor
Kholomoisky, at least until he did something to piss Poroshenko off and got sacked from his
post as governor of Dniepropetrovsk. And in the beginning, Jews who tried to point out that
Neo-Nazi groups were involved in overthrowing Yanukovych, like Dr. Stephen Cohen, were
roundly denounced a 'Russia apologists' just for stating facts.
But now that Washington's whole Ukraine project has gone south, I guess the Nazis, having
outlived their usefulness, are, as usual, to be the fall-guys and take all the blame.
Anna , July 5, 2018 at 2:39 pm
yeh, the Kaganat of Nuland has many veils.
The most stunning aspect of the banderite putsch in Kiev was the dead silence of nazi-hunters
from Wiesenthal Center, the always oh-so-sensitive ADL, the main 52 (fifty-two!) American
Jewish organizations, and the overall docility and compliance of the "righteous" Israel with
the banderite-neo-Nazi ideology by Kagans-selected power structures in Ukraine.
Mr. Kolomojsky, a financier of neo-nazi battalion Azov, is still an Israeli citizen.
Mrs. Nuland-Kagan, the main machinator of the regime change in Kiev, has not been ostracized
by the Jewish Community at large.
The deeply amoral and bloodthirsty Carl Gerschman from NED, who has been the main cheerleader
for the putsch and for the installing the banderite-friendly government in Kiev, has not been
ostracized by the Jewish Community at large either. What a stench!
https://medium.com/@gmochannel/us-staged-a-coup-in-ukraine-brief-history-and-facts-898c6d0007d6
Pft , July 5, 2018 at 9:07 pm
Yeah. The prime minister and many of the top oligarchs are Jewish. Relations between
Ukraine and Israel seem quite good despite the UNSC vote that the US abstained on regarding
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, perhaps reminded by Stalin doing the same to them in
the 1920's.
As for relations with the neo nazis I remember before WWII that Zionists in Palestine
cooperated with Nazis who sent German Jews to Palestine in return for the purchase of German
goods which were being boycotted by Jews in the west
I suspect most Americans don't know Ukrainian history. The early years of Bolshevik rule
were quite brutal and over 10 million rural Christians lost their lives in Ukraine over their
policies .Solzhenitsyn 200 years can shed some light on the roots of the anti-Semitism among
the peasants that developed in the 20's-30's and no doubt has been passed on.
Robert , July 6, 2018 at 4:24 pm
I've thought about this myself and have concluded that a fair number of Jewish
organizations and institutions in the Ukraine were receiving a small portion of the US State
Department funding allocated to the Ukraine each year of $200-250 million, totaling $5
billion since 1992. In return for this rather small (by US standards) outlay to a broad
spectrum of NGOs, private educational and religious institutions, and political groups, the
US purchased an enormous amount of influence. Most of the members of these groups were
unaware of this US support, as the funds were funneled through individual leaders who were
tasked to influence opinion, organize demonstrations and petitions, and write letters to the
press and government members. Scholarships to the US and Canada were offered to promising
youth to ensure continuity of support. For this reason, most Jewish and other groups
operating in Ukraine have, until recently and only with reluctance, been willing to deviate
from the official US "story". Thus, they knowingly (at least as far as their leadership was
concerned) supported an overtly US-led neo-Nazi coup.
mike , July 5, 2018 at 1:24 pm
Makes sense that Josh Cohen is a former U.S. Agency for International Development project
officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. Isn't that
really what this is all about? Putin gets elected and takes charge of the economy, jailing
corrupt oligarchs and putting the kibosh on said reform projects sponsored by us in care of
Jeffrey Sachs et al. As Russia tries to reassert its sovereignty the US gets miffed and
retaliates.
The Electronic Intifada has just posted an article by Asa Winstanley detailing how Israel,
among others, has been supplying the Ukrainian Azov Battalion with military arms. It's well
worth reading.
The next time you hear a pro-Israel mouthpiece sounding off about purported antisemitism
in the British Labour Party, or in pro-Palestinine activist circles in the U.S., invite them
to consider Israel's policy -- and that of the U.S. as well as friendly European states -- of
direct military sponsorship of textbook Nazism in Ukraine. Jews are being menaced and beaten
in the streets of Kiev by armed bands who celebrate their historical persecution, while thugs
like Avigdor Lieberman sit cordially with officials representing that regime. But then, such
warm relations between Zionists and anti-Semites is an old story.
Jeff Harrison , July 5, 2018 at 1:03 pm
Interesting. Anyone with two brains to rub together knows that the US, to the best of it's
ability, has been surrounding Russia with compliant right wing governments, usually
dictators, but we've gotten better at manipulating elections to get reliable puppet
government. The bad news is that it is a full time job to stay on top of that.
It used to be that the only things one could depend on were "death & taxes." Now of
course we must add to that list the very dependable presence of CIA / State Dept lies
parroted by MSM all over the West. Lies which are endlessly repeated in defiance of all
physical reality and often in direct opposition to actual events in the actual world we live
in. From the Ukraine coup, to Russia-gate, to the "Assad's gassing his own people" regime
change propaganda, to the totally surreal Alice in Wonderland Skripnal poisoning nonsense in
the U.K, the Western MSM have been as dependable as the rising sun. They can and do provide
fact-free, evidence-free reporting directly from the bowels of the deep state in support of
the neocolonial West, including unending support for the never ending resort to mass violence
the West relies upon to keep the rest of the planet subjugated – just as it has for the
last 500+ years.
irina , July 5, 2018 at 2:06 pm
It's not just the media. The late night talk show hosts are doing their bit too, as I
heard
last night on a Jimmy Kimmel rerun (of a recent show). Can't remember the context as
I was doing the dishes, but did hear him say the usual "Russian illegally annexed Crimea"
standard phrase, immediately followed by "and then invaded Ukraine". The latter just
casually tossed off as a given. People hear these memes constantly repeated and,
regardless of their veracity (suspect to say the least) it becomes part of their
worldview.
Who is behind the political preaching of hosts like Jimmy Kimmel ?
Inquiring minds want to know !
Joe Tedesky , July 5, 2018 at 2:43 pm
You know what irina, seeing these late night talk shows go all crazy over Putin makes me
think of the Zio-Media executives, and where their allegiance to power resides. Joe
Devil's Advocate , July 5, 2018 at 2:48 pm
I would assume you'd have to look at who owns the media source in question. Kimmel's show
is on ABC, which is partly owned by Disney. Follow the money chain of those 2 parent
companies, and you have your answer.
irina – I quite agree. The same is true of the former Daily Show crew members who
now have their own shows. Several have shown themselves to be quite the little imperialist
war mongers when it comes to gleefully repeating the CIA sponsored Syrian regime change and
Russiagate propaganda. Samantha Bee & John Oliver kept triggering my gag reflex with
their propaganda lines until I found a simple but effective solution and stopped watching
them altogether. We have an amazingly seamless propaganda system here in the U.S. One can
chose to either get one's "pro-war regime change propaganda" delivered with barely concealed
racism and misogyny from Fox News, or instead opt for hearing the same nonsense delivered
with pretentious blather and catchy jazz interludes at PBS. American democracy is all about
having "choices."
Jeff Harrison , July 5, 2018 at 7:57 pm
I quite agree. I knew the minute that they started calling RT a propaganda outlet that, in
fact, the USG was running a full scale propaganda operation. I don't know if I simply wasn't
paying enough attention or if they have, in fact ramped the operation up, but I can hardly
read any MSM outlet's output without calling bullshit on it.
irina , July 6, 2018 at 2:55 am
Jimmy Kimmel actually used to be funny and there is a really good clip
(somewhere on youtube no doubt) of him reading a 'doctored' Dr. Seuss
book to The Donald (a live guest) during his primary candidacy.
But since The Donald's election Kimmel has opened almost every show
with 'ten minutes hate' segment on The Donald. I still watch (or at least
listen) occasionally because I want to know what is being fed to The Public.
You are absolutely right though, "we have an amazingly seamless propaganda
system here in the US". The average person maybe has 30 minutes to
devote to the news, between getting home and having dinner; they watch
some sort of news show and think they are 'informed'. But it actually takes
MANY hours and a knowledge of alternative websites to even begin to piece
together an approximation of what might, in reality, be going on.
The Russians used to say that, at least they knew they were being propagandized.
Unfortunately, probably due to 'American Exceptionalism', most Americans think
the MSM is bringing them 'the truth'. But nothing could be further from The Truth.
Peter H , July 6, 2018 at 10:41 am
I can't count the number of times I've had to turn off Colbert's Late Show for his
Russian/Putin bashing BS. So disappointing. That's a rule in my house now. The first mention
of Russia and off it goes.
Drew Hunkins , July 5, 2018 at 12:52 pm
Likewise, the corporate militarist-Zio media should eventually have to concede someday
that the current Syrian "rebels" are little more than ruthless sociopathic
Saudi-Zio-Washington intel agency supported mercenary terrorists.
Folks in the know knew very early on that much of the Kiev putschists and violent invaders
of Eastern Ukraine were neo-Nazi types bent on eradicating the last vestiges of Russian
social and ethnic solidarity.
It's really truly remarkable when one steps back to think about it all. These are the
depraved groups the crypto-fascists, the Wall Street militarist imperialists, and Zionists
have embedded themselves with: bloodthirsty Takfiri mercenary terrorists and neo-Nazis.
Bob Van Noy , July 5, 2018 at 2:25 pm
Each time I see an article like this I'm reminded of the videos of Zbigniew Brzezinski's
early meetings with the Mujahideen and his manipulation of cultures on The Grand Chessboard
or "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" a totally absurd assumption and the natural outcome
of that absurdity, is blowback which this article again addresses. Our "boots on the ground"
end up paying the price of this kind of supposed intellectualism. Shameful. Thank you Drew
Hunkins.
Joe Tedesky , July 5, 2018 at 2:39 pm
Bob the old saying if I got right is the company you keep is what you become. We have
truly loss our way, and Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of the biggest reasons we have become the
predators of this dying green earth. All this for the profit, as all mankind must yield to
the power of the dollar. Sad. Joe
MBeaver , July 6, 2018 at 5:03 am
One would think we had learned from Vietnam. Instead the "peace loving" liberals do
everything to destabilize whole region for nothing and then send soldiers in who die for
their messed up agenda.
JWalters , July 5, 2018 at 7:16 pm
It is truly remarkable. A lot of the behind-the-scenes magic is explained in "War
Profiteers and Israel's Bank" http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
.
The second neoliberalization of Argentina turned into second financial crash. Brazil is probably next. And Argentina and Brazil
were two contires in which neoliberal staged a counterrevolution after financial crisi of 2008.
The IMF is back in Argentina: "an economic and social crisis, even more serious than the present one, looms large on the horizon"
1. The vicious circle of illegitimate debt grapples the Argentine people once again
2. IMF's $ 50 billion loan surpasses Greece's previous record
Sergio Ferrari from Berne, Switzerland interviewed Eric Toussaint, international debt specialist
After more than a decade of Argentina's official "distance" from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Mauricio Macri's government
has just knocked on the doors of the world's financial police. The $ 50 billion credit granted by the organization during the first
week of June sets an international record and will directly impact the economic and social situation of this South American country.
Eric Toussaint, Belgian historian and economist, an eminent specialist in this field and spokesperson for the Committee for the Abolition
of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), based in Brussels, pointed this out. Interview follows. Q: Why did the Argentine government turn
to the IMF , in full view of Argentina's
relations with this international organization in the late 1990s and their dire political consequences? Is the financial top brass
of the Macri team despairing?
Eric Toussaint (ET): Since the Mauricio Macri government assumed office in December 2015, its policies have led to a critical
situation. Sharp reduction in export taxes have brought down tax revenues, the debt servicing expenditure has been significantly
increased (100% higher in 2018 than in 2017). The country is running out of dollars. Currency reserves fell by $ 8 billion earlier
this year. Macri needs this IMF loan to continue debt servicing. Private international lenders require such a loan as a prerequisite
for continued credit to Argentina. A very large chunk of the IMF loan will be used directly to repay foreign creditors in dollars.
Q: If we look at the Argentine history of the 1990s, this seems to be a scheme of playing with fire
ET: Yes, of course. But I would like to further explore the background of this appeal to the IMF
Q- Please go ahead!
ET: This shows that the government's policy is an abject failure: with a peso that devalued fast; with the
interest rate set at a high 40% by the Argentine Republic's
Central Bank ; with the $ 8 billion reduction in international reserves
that keep declining. And with a debt service that has increased by
100% compared to 2017. Faced with a balance sheet of such a nature,
undoubtedly it is a total failure. Macri claimed that a high growth level and a viable debt would be ensured by paying the debt –
between end-2015 and early-2016 – and by compensating the
vulture funds , in keeping with Judge Thomas Griesa's
verdict. He knelt before the vulture funds (see:
http://www.cadtm.org/Reject-the-Imminent-Agreement-with
). But the facts confirm that this plan did not work. Debt rose at a whirling pace and it's startling to see how fast it snowballed.
As a result, it became impossible to convince the creditors that Argentina could repay its debt in the future. That's why Macri is
asking for this $ 50 billion credit. We must remember that when Greece received $ 30 billion from the IMF in 2010 in the backdrop
of a dramatic situation, it was a record amount!
Q: Some analysts say that President Macri is trying to breathe in some fresh air with the help of this loan, before commanding
a comfortable position in the October 2019 elections.
ET: I would not like to engage in farfetched political speculations. I prefer facts. I have read the contents of the agreement
signed with the IMF and it has imposed a severe reduction in general social benefits and wages of the public servants. Public investment
will be almost wiped out and it will lead to an economic depression. Debt repayment will increase and the IMF charges high
interest rates . The government will impose taxes with elevated
rates on the public to repay the debt, while continuing to hand out fiscal perks to the capitalists. The government will encourage
the export of the maximum number of agricultural products and raw materials to the global market by reinforcing the extractivist-exporting
model. IMF's policy will lead the country to an economic and social crisis even more serious than what it suffered before this loan
was sanctioned. Let's go back to your question. It is very likely that, politically, Macri will claim that what he is doing is not
his project, but what the IMF demands from him.
Q: This brings us back to a not-so-distant past and I would like to highlight that: the decade of indebtedness and the IMF's
role in the 1990s that eventually led to the social outburst of 2001. Can history repeat itself without tragedy?
ET: History is repeating itself in a country that is a serial debt payer. It started with the illegitimate and odious debt inherited
from the military dictatorship of the 1970s. IMF's support was crucial for this dictatorship to continue until the early 1980s. The
vicious circle of illegitimate debts persisted during the 1990s with President Carlos Menem followed by Fernando De la Rúa. Their
allegiance to the IMF's recommendations led to the great social crisis of late 2001. President Rodríguez Saá, in his few days or
Presidency at end-2001, announced the suspension of debt repayment to allay popular anger. The debt was restructured in 2005, then
re-negotiated with creditors who had not participated before. It caused a crisis in the government and evoked sharp criticism from
the people (see the section on Argentina here
http://www.cadtm.org/Restructuration-Audit-Suspension,11723
). Former minister Roberto Lavagna, who had negotiated the 2005 restructuring, objected to negotiations with outsider creditors.
The Argentine authorities never wanted to do what Ecuador did in 2007-2008: to carry out a debt audit with citizens' participation,
which could have defined the odious and illegitimate part of the debt (see:
http://www.cadtm.org/Video-The-Ecuador-debt-audit-a
and http://www.cadtm.org/Vulture-funds-are-the-vanguard
). This, along with the inconsistency of the Cristina Fernandez government's national sovereignty discourse, frustrated people. This
partly explains Macri's electoral victory in 2015.
Q: A course over several decades where illegitimate debts condition government policies without ever finding structural solutions
ET: Yes. And that led today to this new mega-loan from the IMF. From now on, it can be included in the category of odious and
illegitimate debts. An odious debt is a debt contracted against the people's interests, and the creditors know that it is illegitimate.
Evidently a new illegitimate and odious debt is taking shape.
Q: What about future prospects?
ET: I have already spoken about the deteriorating economic and social crisis. I hope for a strong popular reaction in the coming
months. I also hope that the popular forces will not take too long to consolidate their strength to oppose even more vigorously the
Macri government and the pressures of the IMF and other international creditors.
If we assume that this is true: "Beyond that, the Ukrainians had no realistic option to defend Crimea. Their military was in extremely
poor shape by the time 2014 rolled around thanks to more than two decades of neglect, monumental corruption and even more monumental
incompetence by Ukrainian politicians and military leaders, while the Russians had well prepared contingency plans and had already begun
far reaching military reforms as a result of their experiences in Chechnya and Georgia."
Then Ukrainian armed forces should drastically improve after several years of fighting.
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that the US leadership didn't even stop to consider how the Russians might react shows just how arrogant, hubristic and incompetent Obama and his national security team really were. ..."
"... Caveat emptor. Karber is a flamboyant blowhard. This is not to dismiss Russia's invasion or or act of war in Ukraine but merely to state that this guy is essentially a Tom Clancy cut out. I like a lot of his slides (I wonder who made them?) and his valuable tactical observations (even if it does sound, at times, like a shopping list for Ukrainian military aid) but he is no SME. https://foreignpolicy.com/2... ..."
If the Obama administration ordered Ukraine not to fight for Crimea on the assumption they could force Russia to give
it back via sanctions, they miscalculated badly.
The Russians believe Crimea rightfully belongs to them and they saw control of it as vital to their national security. There
were some serious shenanigans going on in Kiev, which the Russians interpreted as an American engineered coup. The Russians reacted
to what they believed was a major threat to their national security. The fact that the US leadership didn't even stop to consider
how the Russians might react shows just how arrogant, hubristic and incompetent Obama and his national security team really were.
There is no way the Russians will ever give up Crimea, especially under pressure from the US, NATO and the EU. No Russian politician
could do that and hope to survive. Besides, the Russians have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to endure suffering and hardships
much greater than the capacity of Western nations to endure and the sanctions showed that Russia was far less vulnerable to pressure
than Western politicians assumed.
Beyond that, the Ukrainians had no realistic option to defend Crimea. Their military was in extremely poor shape by the time
2014 rolled around thanks to more than two decades of neglect, monumental corruption and even more monumental incompetence by
Ukrainian politicians and military leaders, while the Russians had well prepared contingency plans and had already begun far reaching
military reforms as a result of their experiences in Chechnya and Georgia.
SurfaceBook •
4 hours ago I disagree with mr kerber's assesment on Crimean ops being the largest air assault in history. Operation Market
Garden in WW2 was the largest Air assault involving divisions of paratroopers from US/UK/Poland into german occupied drop zones
(in conjuction with a land assault forcing it's way to Arnhem).
One other curiousity , Washington 'ordered' Ukraine ? a sovereign nation under orders ? just who is in charge of ukraine at
that time ? see more
To answer your question: Victoria Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for Eurasian Affairs during the Obama administration.
In other words, she was the American proconsul for Eastern Europe.
Bottom line? "The Fog of War".........All these scenarios mean nothing after the first "shot" is fired. If any US "enemy" cannot
crush US air power they are finished from the gitgo. Not a fan of our foreign policies but we can "crush" the enemy; we just can't
"rule" them.
Would really like to hear the other side. Where does he get his information from? The Ukrainians? All this Russia-is-evil-and-scheming-to-do-more-evil
is ... slightly over the top. I don't say it's impossible that Russian regular troops have been involved in Donbas but he makes
it sound like Unternehmen Zitadelle
IMHO, beware taking too many lessons away from this conflict. The Ukranian's don't have anything close to the SEAD/DEAD/EW/airpower
capability of the US. What worked against their aviation won't necessarily work against ours. Once mid-high altitude air defenses
are down, enemy jammers will have a short lifespan.
His comments that even light infantry should have the means to get away when under attack, and sufficient armor to counter
attack point to the inadequacies of Army IBCTs (Infantry, not "Interim").
IMHO, IBCTs should have 100% vehicular mobility, and have the option of attaching an independent tank battalion. Cobbling together
random HMMWVs from div/corps just seems silly. Make vehicles part of the core TOE.
see more
You are assuming that we are working within our own timeline. Yes with enough time and blood, we can peal back their defense
network with airpower. The question is, who buys us that time?
Russians (and the Chinese) ground forces trained to fight in contested airspace. The US Army assumes we have it.
Sol, Thanks for posting the link and asking for discussion. One thing that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up
is how much of this is being shared with the PLA and worse the DPRK? They are pretty smart and probility can figure lots of this
out on their own. Is there any PLA observers up front with the RuFA or exchanging TTPs in an AAR? Or professional papers and presentations
at staff school level or higher? I am just a grunt and red leg, but how does the EW and fires part impact the navy? A step is
being taken:
http://soldiersystems.net/2... I wonder when this is part of OPFOR at NTC or 29 Palms?
see more
NO! thank you for sharing !!!!! this is like getting a seat at the Army War College and getting to hear what is never shared
with the troops or the public.
to be honest what i heard in that video was downright shocking. i won't say scary cause i won't be facing that shit but if
i was i'd be beyond concerned.
to answer your question you can bet your last dollar that the Chinese are getting briefings on this. you can bet that they're
not only studying the above vid but getting info from the subject matter experts in Russia.
this guy is senior but i would so love to hear an assessment of Marine Corps chances if war were to break out in Norway or
surrounding countries (we still have the flank). how would a Marine Expeditionary Brigade standup to those type tactics. we're
talking about a lighter formation than the US Army equivalent but with integrated air.
oh and a side note. as much as i think the US Army and Marine Corps would be in a hurtlocker can you imagine what would happen
to any of our European allies if they were somehow isolated and attacked?
my only regret about this whole thing is that i wanted to sit back and drink in serious conversation about this video. instead
i'm getting the usual trolling. i can tolerate that on the majority of subjects i cover here but this one is different. i wanted
to hear from serious individuals doing serious thinking about what the Dr presented.
such is life. if you run across anything else PLEASE send it. i find this fascinating!
he slide at 12.44 is also interesting it shows Russia's "desire" for "friendly relations" with the west and its neighbours.
But i guess like in the cold war there is no shortage of naives that think that Russia understands anything else but sanctions
or force. see more
Caveat emptor. Karber is a flamboyant blowhard. This is not to dismiss Russia's invasion or or act of war in Ukraine but merely
to state that this guy is essentially a Tom Clancy cut out. I like a lot of his slides (I wonder who made them?) and his valuable
tactical observations (even if it does sound, at times, like a shopping list for Ukrainian military aid) but he is no SME.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2...
My conclusions -- Western/ US allies/Nato armies will need to have:
- integrated air defence at every level from platoon to regimental.(manpads, spaag,
- mass fire/steel rain capabilities cheap and heavy MLRS also MLRS launched antiradiation missiles)
the israelis launched AGM Shrikes with boosters from trucks to target Syrian Radars
- Field Army EW sigint/elint/jamming/defense capabilities
- EW munitions (currently russia has tube artillery launched jammers don't know about the US or NATO)
- Small and light SPGs like the Gvozdika
Whilst I agree Russia does tend to export it's kit extensively. Also some of the potential uses such as GPS jamming drones, could
be more than merely inconvenient on very small budgets.
Yes neoliberalism is deeply predatory. Still is survives as a social system for let's say 40 years (1987-2017) and probably will
survive another 20-30 years. And what is coming might be worse. If Trump signify turn to "national neoliberalism" the next
step from it might some kind of neofascism.
Notable quotes:
"... But financialization didn't just have a direct cost -- no value being created, just men in shiny suits betting pebbles on who'd blink first. It also had an opportunity cost. As finance grew to be a larger and larger share of the economy, so the wind got sucked out of the sails of the "real economy", as American economists put it, which simply means people doing the work that actually does create value -- teachers, nurses, engineers, artisans, bakers, small-town factories, and so on. Think about it simply: the more money that was burned up in speculating, the less that was available for making things of genuine value. So the incomes of all these people -- those in the "real economy" -- began to stagnate. New schools and hospitals and energy grids and so on weren't built -- all the money was going towards speculating on the backs the old ones, sometimes, often, on their failures. A black hole was growing at the heart of the economy -- but according to pundits, it was the sun itself. Everything was upside down. The bets were indeed about to all go south at once -- only no one knew understood how or why yet. ..."
"... The third force in the rise of predatory capitalism was the implosion of the institution formerly known as the job. Now, just before peak financialization, beginning in the 1990s, many jobs were "offshored." That's a polite way to say that the speculators above discovered that companies were more profitable when they evaded as much of human civilization as possible. Find a country with no labour laws, no protections, no standards, no rule of law at all, in fact -- and send jobs there. That way, you wouldn't have to pay for pensions, healthcare, childcare, insurance, and so on. Cost savings! Efficiency! Synergies, even -- you could make everything in that one sweatshop. ..."
"... We're used to thinking that offshoring "took" jobs in rich countries. But the truth is subtler -- and more ruinous. They blew apart the idea of a job as we used to know it. As jobs went to countries without good governance, decent labour laws, a boomerang effect happened. ..."
"... Managers began stripping away benefits of every kind, from childcare, to vacations, to healthcare. Until, at last, in a final triumph, the "at-will job" and the "zero-hours contract" were created -- social contracts that were only "jobs" in name, but offered less than no stability, security, mobility, or opportunity. People who didn't have benefits could now be fired on a whim -- and so now they bore all the risk. But the risk of what, precisely? ..."
"... Remember those speculators? Taking huge risks, betting billions with each other, on exactly nothing of real value? Risk had come full circle. Now it was the average person in the real economy who bore all the risks of these bets going bad. If the bets with south, who'd take the hit? All those people with zero benefits, no protection, no safety ..."
"... So in had to step governments. They bailed out the banks -- but didn't "restructure" them, which is to say, fire their managers, wash out their shareholders, and sell off the bad loans and bets. They just threw money at them ..."
"... What does a bankrupt have to do? Liquidate. So governments began to slash investment in social systems of all kinds. Healthcare systems, pension systems, insurance systems, media and energy systems. This was the fourth step in the birth of predatory capitalism: austerity. ..."
"... The only thing keeping the real economy going at this point was investment by the government -- after all, the speculators were speculating, not investing for the long run. It was governments that were effectively keeping economies afloat, by providing a floor for income, by anchoring economies with a vast pool of stable, safe, real, secure jobs, and investing dollars back in societies short of them. And yet, at the precise moment that governments needed to create more of precisely that, they did just the opposite. ..."
"... It's the once prosperous but now imploded middle which turns on the classes, ethnicities, groups, below it. The people who expected and felt entitled to lives of safety and security and stability -- who anticipated being at the top of a tidy little hierarchy, the boss of this or that, the chieftain of that or this, but now find themselves adrift and unmoored in a collapsing society, powerless. ..."
"... Predatory capitalism imploding into strange, new forms of old diseases of the body politic ..."
How did we get here? To a world where the forces of intolerance and indecency are on the rise, and those of decency, wisdom, and
civilization are waning? Is something like a new Dark Age falling?
I think it has everything to do with predatory capitalism, and so I want to tell you a story. Of how it came to be born, in four
steps, which span three decades.
During the 2000s, the economy of the rich world underwent something like a phase transition. It became "financialized", as the
jargon goes -- which simply means that finance came to make up a greater and greater share of the economy. Hedge funds and investment
banks and shady financial vehicles of all kinds went from a modest portion of the economy, to making up a huge chunk of it -- around
half, in some countries.
Now, what was "financialization" for? What were all these bankers, hedge fund managers, investors, and so on, doing? The answer
is: nothing. Nothing of value, anyways. They were simply placing bets with each other. Bets on bets on bets, meta-bets. Economists,
who have something like an inferiority complex, envious of swashbuckling bankers, bought their marketing pitch hog, line, and sinker:
"we're going to reduce risk! Everyone will benefit!" But no such thing was happening -- and anyone could see it. Risk was being
massively amplified, in fact, because every time a speculator made a billion dollar bet with another, they were both betting with
the same pool of money, essentially. Whose money? It wasn't theirs -- it was everyone's. Pensions, savings, bank accounts, earnings,
retirement funds. All that being bet on bets on bets on bets which amounted to nothing. But what if all the bets went south at once?
First, I want you to really understand that what was happening was a zero-sum game, where one had to lose for another to win.
Imagine there are three of us, in a little stone age tribe, with a hundred pebbles each. We spend all day every day finding new ways
to lend pebbles to each other, to bet them on who'll blink first, or even bets on those bets, and so on. In our little economy, does
anyone ever end up better off? Does anyone, for example, discover antibiotics, or even invent the wheel? Nope. We're just fools,
who'll never accomplish, learn, or create anything, sitting around playing a zero-sum game, in which no real value is ever created.
The pebbles never become anything more valuable, like, for example, books, symphonies, knowledge, or medicine. All that is exactly
what was happening during the phase of financialization.
But financialization didn't just have a direct cost -- no value being created, just men in shiny suits betting pebbles on who'd
blink first. It also had an opportunity cost. As finance grew to be a larger and larger share of the economy, so the wind got sucked
out of the sails of the "real economy", as American economists put it, which simply means people doing the work that actually does
create value -- teachers, nurses, engineers, artisans, bakers, small-town factories, and so on. Think about it simply: the more
money that was burned up in speculating, the less that was available for making things of genuine value. So the incomes of all these
people -- those in the "real economy" -- began to stagnate. New schools and hospitals and energy grids and so on weren't built
-- all the money was going towards speculating on the backs the old ones, sometimes, often, on their failures. A black hole was
growing at the heart of the economy -- but according to pundits, it was the sun itself. Everything was upside down. The bets were
indeed about to all go south at once -- only no one knew understood how or why yet.
How was the real economy to survive, then? Another hidden effect of financialization was super-concentration -- the second force
in the rise of predatory capitalism. Mom-and-pop capitalism is a healthy and beautiful thing, an economy of a million little shops,
bakeries, artisans -- but it takes only a modest attachment to a profit motive. But thanks to the rise of massive, global speculation,
only aggressive quarterly profit-maximization was allowed. CEO earnings were hitched to share prices, and your share price only went
up if your earnings did, relentlessly, illogicaly, crazily, every single quarter, instead of stabilizing at a happy, gentle amount
-- and so the only way left, in the end, to achieve it, was to build titanic monopolies, which could squeeze people for every dime.
Once the economy had Macy's, JC Penney, K-Mart, Toys-R-Us and Sears. Now it has Walmart. The story was repeated across every single
industry. Amazon, Google, Apple. A new age of monopoly arose.
But monopolies had an effect, too. The third force in the rise of predatory capitalism was the implosion of the institution formerly
known as the job. Now, just before peak financialization, beginning in the 1990s, many jobs were "offshored." That's a polite way
to say that the speculators above discovered that companies were more profitable when they evaded as much of human civilization as
possible. Find a country with no labour laws, no protections, no standards, no rule of law at all, in fact -- and send jobs there.
That way, you wouldn't have to pay for pensions, healthcare, childcare, insurance, and so on. Cost savings! Efficiency! Synergies,
even -- you could make everything in that one sweatshop.
We're used to thinking that offshoring "took" jobs in rich countries. But the truth is subtler -- and more ruinous. They blew
apart the idea of a job as we used to know it. As jobs went to countries without good governance, decent labour laws, a boomerang
effect happened. The machine discovered that it could do in rich countries what it had done in poor ones -- and so it began stripping
away everything that made a job "a job." Because the economy was increasingly composed of monopolies, giant companies, banks, and
investors had the power to do so with impunity. Speculators began raiding pension funds. Managers began stripping away benefits of
every kind, from childcare, to vacations, to healthcare. Until, at last, in a final triumph, the "at-will job" and the "zero-hours
contract" were created -- social contracts that were only "jobs" in name, but offered less than no stability, security, mobility,
or opportunity. People who didn't have benefits could now be fired on a whim -- and so now they bore all the risk. But the risk
of what, precisely?
Remember those speculators? Taking huge risks, betting billions with each other, on exactly nothing of real value? Risk had come
full circle. Now it was the average person in the real economy who bore all the risks of these bets going bad. If the bets with south,
who'd take the hit? All those people with zero benefits, no protection, no safety, all those people for whom "a job" now meant something
more like "a temporary soul-crushing way to avoid destitution." They're the ones who'd be fired, instantly, lose what little savings
they had, have their already dwindling incomes slashed, be ruined.
And then the bets went bad. As bets tend to do, when you make too many of them, on foolish things. What had the speculators been
betting with each other on? As it turns out, largely on property prices. But people without the stable jobs that had kept such a
huge property bubble going didn't have growing incomes anymore. Property prices couldn't keep rising. Bang! The financial system
fell like a row of dominoes. It turned out that everyone had bet property prices would go on rising -- and on the other side of
that bet was everyone else. All of them had been betting on the same thing -- "we all bet prices will keep rising forever!" The
losses were so vast, and so widespread, that the whole global financial system buckled. The banks didn't have the money to pay each
other for these foolish bets -- how could they have? Each one had bet the whole house on the same thing, and they all would have
gone bankrupt to each other. LOL -- do you see the fatal stupidity of it all yet?
So in had to step governments. They bailed out the banks -- but didn't "restructure" them, which is to say, fire their managers,
wash out their shareholders, and sell off the bad loans and bets. They just threw money at them -- and took those bad bets onto
the nation's books, instead. It was the most foolish decision since the Great Depression. Why?
Well, now governments had trillions in -- pow! -- sudden debt. What were they to do? How would they pay it off? Now, you might
think that Presidents are very intelligent people, but unfortunately, they are just politicians. And so instead of doing what they
should have done -- printing money, simply cancelling each others' debts to each other, which were for fictional speculation anyways
-- they decided that they were "broke". Bankrupt, even -- even though a country can't go bankrupt, anymore than you could if you
could print your own currency at home, and spend it everywhere.
What does a bankrupt have to do? Liquidate. So governments began to slash investment in social systems of all kinds. Healthcare
systems, pension systems, insurance systems, media and energy systems. This was the fourth step in the birth of predatory capitalism:
austerity.
But people's incomes were already dwindling, thanks to the first three steps -- as jobs not just disappeared in quantity, but
also imploded in quality, as monopolies grew in power, and as pointless, destructive, zero-sum speculation sucked the life out of
the real economy. The only thing keeping the real economy going at this point was investment by the government -- after all, the
speculators were speculating, not investing for the long run. It was governments that were effectively keeping economies afloat,
by providing a floor for income, by anchoring economies with a vast pool of stable, safe, real, secure jobs, and investing dollars
back in societies short of them. And yet, at the precise moment that governments needed to create more of precisely that, they did
just the opposite.
Snap! Economies broke like twigs. The people formerly known as the middle class had been caught in between the pincers of these
four forces -- financialization, monopoly, the implosion of the job, and austerity. Together, they shattered what was left of rich
economies -- to the point that today, incomes are stagnant across the rich world, even in much vaunted Scandinavia, while living
standards are falling in many rich countries, like the US and UK.
What do people do as hardship begins to bite -- especially those who expected comfortable, easy lives? They become reactionary,
lashing out violently. They seek safety in the arms of demagogues. That doesn't mean, as American pundits naively think, that "poor
people become authoritarians!" Quite the opposite.
It's the once prosperous but now imploded middle which turns on the classes, ethnicities, groups, below it. The people who expected
and felt entitled to lives of safety and security and stability -- who anticipated being at the top of a tidy little hierarchy,
the boss of this or that, the chieftain of that or this, but now find themselves adrift and unmoored in a collapsing society, powerless.
That gap between expectation and reality is what ruinous. They retain a desperate need to be atop a hierarchy, to be above someone,
the entitled imploded middles -- and what has happened in history, time and again, is that they turn to those who promise them
just that superiority, by turning on those below them. Even if, especially if, it is in the extreme, irrational, yet perfectly logical
form of supremacy and dominion over the weak, the despised, and the impure.
And that is what all today's reactionary, extremist movements --
which I call the Faction --
really are. Predatory capitalism imploding into strange, new forms of old diseases of the body politic -- ultrauthoritarianism,
theosupremacism, kleptofascism, neofeudalism, biodominionism, hatriarchy, technotalitarianism, novel and lethal forms of ruin for
a new dark age.
And so here we are, you and I. On the cusp of that age. A time where the shadows in human hearts shine as black and blinding as
midnight. And once again, it is the folly and hubris of wise men that led us here.
Part I:
Commercial Paper Market Seizure turns Banks into their
own Vulture Investors
This article appeared in
AToL
on November 27, 2007
Vulture restructuring is a purging cure for a
malignant debt cancer. The reckoning of systemic debt presents regulators with a choice of facing the cancer
frontally and honestly by excising the invasive malignancy immediately or let it metastasize over the entire
financial system over the painful course of several quarters or even years and decades by feeding it with more
dilapidating debt.
But the strategy of being your own vulture started
with Goldman Sachs, the star Wall Street firm known for its prowess in alternative asset management, producing
spectacular profits by manipulating debt coming and going amid unfathomable market anomalies and contradictions
during years of liquidity boom. The alternative asset management industry deals with active, dynamic
investments in derivative asset classes other than standard equity or fixed income products. Alternative
investments can include hedge funds, private equity, special purpose vehicles, managed futures, currency
arbitrage and other structured finance products. Counterbalancing opposite risks in mutually canceling paired
speculative positions to achieve gains from neutralized risk exposure is the basic logic for hedged fund
investments.
Hedge Funds
The wide spread in return on investment
between hedge funds and mutual funds is primarily due to differences in trading strategies. One fundamental
difference is that hedge funds deploy dynamic trading strategies to profit from arbitraging price anomalies
caused by market inefficiencies independent of market movements whereas mutual funds employ a static
buy-and-hold strategy to profit from economic growth. An important operational difference is the use of
leverage. Hedge funds typically leverage their informed stakes by margining their positions and hedging their
risk exposure through the use of short sales, or counter-positions in convergence or divergent pairs. In
contrast, the use of leverage is often limited if not entirely restricted for mutual funds.
The classic model of hedge funds
developed by Alfred Winslow Jones (1910-1989) takes long and short positions in equities simultaneously to
limit exposures to volatility in the stock market. Jones, Australian-born, Harvard and Columbia educated
sociologist turned financial journalist, came upon a key insight that one could combine two opposing investment
positions: buying stocks and selling short paired stocks, each position by itself being risky and speculative,
but when properly combined would result in a conservative portfolio that could yield market-neutral outsized
gains with leverage. The realization that one could couple opposing speculative plays to achieve conservative
ends was the most important step in the development of hedged funds.
The
Credit Guns of August
Yet the credit guns of August 2007 did
not spare Goldman's high-flying hedge funds. Goldman, the biggest
US
investment bank by market value, saw its Global Equity Opportunities Fund suffer a 28% decline with assets
dropping by $1.4 billion to $3.6 billion in the first week of August as the fund's computerized quantitative
investment strategies fumbled over sudden sharp declines in stock prices worldwide.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index, a
measure of large-capitalization stocks, fell 44.4 points or 2.96% on August 9. On August 14, the S&P 500 fell
another 26.38 points or 1.83%, followed by another fall of 19.84 points to 1,370.50 or 1.39% on August 15,
totaling 9.4% from its record high reached on July 19, but still substantially higher than its low of 801
reached on
March 11, 2003
.
Goldman explained the setback in Global
Equity Opportunities in a statement: "Across most sectors, there has been an increase in overlapping trades, a
surge in volatility and an increase in correlations. These factors have combined to challenge many of the
trading algorithms used in quantitative strategies. We believe the current values that the market is assigning
to the assets underlying various funds represent a discount that is not supported by the fundamentals." The
statement is a conceptual stretch of the meaning of "fundamentals" which Goldman defines as value marked to
model based on a liquidity boom rather than marked to market, even as the model has been rendered dysfunctional
by the reality of a liquidity bust.
The market value in mid August of two
other Goldman funds: Global Alpha and North American Equity Opportunities also suffered big losses. Global
Alpha fell 27% in the year-to-date period, with half of the decline occurring in the first week of August.
North American Equity Opportunities, which started the year with about $767 million in assets, was down more
than 15% through July 27. The losses had been magnified by high leverage employed by the funds' trading
strategies. Goldman said both risk-taking and leverage in these two funds had since been reduced by 75% to cut
future losses. Similarly, leverage employed by Global Equity Opportunities had been reduced to 3.5 times equity
from 6 times. The three funds together normally managed about $10 billion of assets.
Feeding
on One's Own Death Flesh
Facing pending losses, Goldman Chairman
Lloyd Blankfein was reported to have posed a question to his distraught fund managers: if a similar distress
opportunity such as Goldman's own Global Equity Opportunities presented itself in the open market outside of
Goldman, would Goldman invest in it as a vulture deal. The answer was a resounding yes. Thus the strategy of
feeding on one's own dead flesh to survive, if not to profit, took form.
Goldman would moderate its pending
losses by profiting as vulture investor in its own distressed funds. The loss from one pocket would flow into
another pocket as gains that, with a bit of luck, could produce spectacular net profit in the long run if the
abnormally high valuations could be manipulated to hold, or the staying power from new capital injection could
allow the fund to ride out the temporary sharp fall in market value. It was the ultimate hedge: profiting from
one's own distress. The success of the strategy depends on whether the losses are in fact caused by temporary
anomalies rather than fundamental adjustment. Otherwise, it would be throwing good money after bad.
The Fed
Held Firm on Inflation Bias
The Fed, in its Tuesday, August 7 Fed
Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, defied market expectation and decided against lowering interest rates
with a bias against growth and focused instead on inflation threats. In response, the S&P 500 index, with
profit margin at 9% against a historical average of 6%, fell 44.4 points or 2.96% to 1,427 on August 9. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 387 points to 13,504 on the same day, even as the Federal Reserve
pumped $62 billion of new liquidity into the banking system to help relieve seizure in the debt market.
On the following Monday, August 13,
Goldman announced it would injected $2 billion of new equity from its own funds into its floundering Global
Equity Opportunities fund, along with another $1 billion from big-ticket investors, including CV Starr & Co.,
controlled by former American International Group (AIG) chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, California real
estate developer Eli Broad who helped found SunAmerica and later sold it to AIG, and hedge fund Perry Capital
LLC, which is run by Richard Perry, a former Goldman Sachs equity trader.
The new equity injection was intended
to help shore up the long/short equity fund, which was down almost 30% in the previous week, to keep the fund
from forced sales of assets at drastic discount long enough for markets to stabilize and for the fund to get
out of the tricky leveraged bets it took before the credit markets went haywire in mid August. Global Equity
"suffered significantly" as global markets sold off on worries about debt defaults credit draught, dragging the
perceived value of its assets down to $3.6 billion, from about $5 billion.
Goldman chief financial officer David
Viniair on a conference call with analysts was emphatic that the move was not a rescue but to capture "a good
opportunity". After more than a week of panic over the disorderly state of global capital markets, Goldman
Sachs pulled a kicking live rabbit magically out of its distressed asset hat.
On a conference call to discuss the
additional equity investment in the $3.6 billion Global Equity Opportunities fund, Goldman executives insisted
the move would not add to moral hazard (encouraging expectations that lead investors to take more risk than
they otherwise might because they expect to be bailed out), but would merely reflect the firm's belief that the
value of the fund's underlying assets was out of whack with "fundamentals" and that sooner or later the losses
would be recouped when an orderly market returns.
"We believe the current values that the
market is assigning to the assets underlying various funds represent a discount that is not supported by the
fundamentals," Goldman explained in a statement. A day later, on August 14, the S&P 500 fell another 26.38
points or 1.83%, followed by another fall of 19.84 points or 1.39% on August 15, notwithstanding that a chorus
of respected voices were assuring the public that the sub-prime mortgage crisis had been contained and would
not spread to the entire financial system.
But Goldman did not inject more equity
into two of its other funds: Global Alpha and North American Equity Opportunities that had also suffered sharp
losses. Goldman said it was reducing leverage in the funds, a process that was mostly complete, but added that
it was not unwinding Global Alpha, down 27% this year through August 13, about half of that in the previous
week alone. Unlike Global Equity Opportunities, Goldman did not bolster its Global Alpha quantitative fund.
Investors had reportedly asked to withdraw $1.6 billion, leaving Global Alpha with about $6.8 billion in assets
after forced liquidation to pay the withdrawals.
Ireland
registered Global Alpha, originally seeded in 1995 with just $10 million and returned 140% in its first full
year of operation, was started by Mark Carhart and Raymond Iwanowski, young students of finance professor
Eugene Fama of the
University
of
Chicago
.
Fama's concept of efficient markets is based on his portfolio theory which states that rational investors will
use diversification to optimize their portfolios based on precise pricing of risky assets.
Global Alpha soon became the Rolls
Royce of a fleet of alternative investment vehicles that returned over 48% before fees annually. Hedge funds
usually charge management fees of up to 2% of assets under management and 20% of investment gains as incentive
fees. Global Alpha fees soared to $739 million in first quarter of 2006, from $131 million just a year earlier
and boosted earnings rise at the blue-chip Goldman Sachs by 64% to $2.48 billion, the biggest 2006
first-quarter gain of any major Wall Street firm. Goldman is one of the world's largest hedge fund managers,
with $29.5 billion in assets under management in an industry that oversees $2.7 trillion globally. Goldman
reported in October 2006 that its asset management and securities services division produced $485 million, or
21% of its $2.36 billion in pretax profit for the fiscal third quarter.
For 2006, Global Alpha dropped 11.6%
through the end of November and end up dropping 9% for the year yet still generating over $700 million in fees
from earlier quarters. That was the first annual decline in seven years and followed an almost 40% gain for all
of 2005. The fund took a hit misjudging the direction of global stock and currency markets, specifically that
the Norwegian krone and Japanese yen would decline against the dollar. Global Alpha lost money partly on
wrong-way bets that equities in
Japan
would
rise, stocks in the rest of
Asia
and the
US
would fall and the dollar would strengthen. Before August 2007, the fund had lost almost 10% on wrong bet in
global bond markets.
Goldman's smaller $600 million North
American Equity Opportunities fund had also hit rough waters, losing 15% this year. There was real danger of a
rush of redemptions from nervous investors that would force the funds to sell securities in a market that had
all but seized up, forcing down asset prices to fire sale levels. Global Equity Opportunities investors were
entitled to pull their money monthly with a 15-day warning, meaning notices for Aug. 31 were due on August 16.
Global Alpha investors could redeem quarterly, and certain share classes also must notify the fund by the week
of August 13.
Hedge funds are private, largely
unregulated pools of capital whose managers command largely unrestricted authority to buy or sell any assets
within the bounds of their disclosed strategies and participate in gains but not losses from investment. The
industry has been growing over 20% annually due to its above-market performance. Still, Carhart and Iwanowski,
both in their early forties, had not been able to take any of their 20% incentive fees since Global Alpha fell
from its 2006 peak. They would have to make good about 60% of their previous incentive fees from profit, if
any, in future quarters before they could resume taking a cut of the fund's future gains.
The Fed
Wavered
By August 16, the DJIA fell way below
13,000 to an intraday low of 12,445, losing 1,212 points from its 13,657 close on August 8. The next day,
August 17, the Fed while keeping the Fed Funds rate target unchanged at 5.25%, lowered the Discount Rate by 50
basis points to 5.75%, reducing the gap from the conventional 100 basis points by half to 50 basis points and
changed the rules for access by banks to the Fed discount window.
In an accompanying statement, the Fed
said: "To promote the restoration of orderly conditions in financial markets, the Federal Reserve Board
approved temporary changes to its primary credit discount window facility. The Board approved a 50 basis point
reduction in the primary credit rate to 5-3/4 percent, to narrow the spread between the primary credit rate and
the Federal Open Market Committee's target federal funds rate to 50 basis points. The Board is also announcing
a change to the Reserve Banks' usual practices to allow the provision of term financing for as long as 30 days,
renewable by the borrower. These changes will remain in place until the Federal Reserve determines that market
liquidity has improved materially. These changes are designed to provide depositories with greater assurance
about the cost and availability of funding. The Federal Reserve will continue to accept a broad range of
collateral for discount window loans, including home mortgages and related assets. Existing collateral margins
will be maintained. In taking this action, the Board approved the requests submitted by the Boards of Directors
of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and
San Francisco
."
The Fed
Panicked
A month later, on September 18,
brushing aside a DJIA closing at a respectable 13,403 the day before even in the face of poor employment data
for August, the Fed panicked over the unemployment data and lowered both the Fed Funds rate target and the
Discount Rate each by 50 basis points to 4.75% and 5.25% respectively. The rate cuts gave the DJIA a continuous
rally for 9 consecutive days that ended on October 1 at 14,087. Obviously, the Fed knew something ominous about
the credit market that was not reflected in the DJIA index.
The Global Equity Opportunities fund,
now with about $6.6 billion in asset value, was using six times leverage before the capital infusion. Like many
other managers, Goldman was experiencing the same problems with its so-called quantitative funds. Quant funds
use computerized models to make opportunistic investment decisions on minute statistic disparities in asset
prices caused by market inefficiency. When the short-term credit market seized up, the quant models turned
dysfunctional.
Funds caught with significant losses in
credit and bond investments had to sell stock holdings to lower the risks profile of their overall portfolios,
and the herd selling in the stock market magnified the price shift in a downward spiral. Stocks that were held
long fell in price, and stocks that were held short rose, exacerbating losses.
Opacity
Fueled Market Rumors
As required, quant fund managers have
been disclosing losses to investors but they are not required to disclose to the market. The opacity fueled the
rumor mill. Renaissance Technology's $26 billion institutional equities fund was reportedly down 7% for the
year. Some of the funds Applied Quantitative Research (AQR) managed were down as well, as were quant funds at
Tykhe Capital, Highbridge Capital and D.E. Shaw (of which Lehman now owns 20%).
Vulture
Opportunities in Distressed Funds
At Goldman, quant funds made up half of
the $151 billion of alternative investments under management, and half of which was the sort of long-short
equity quant funds that had been having trouble. But Goldman executives began to see opportunities in
distressed funds. The highly respected AQR was raking in new funds to invest in distressed situations, as were
other astute fund managers. AQR is an investment management firm employing a disciplined multi-asset, global
research process, with investment products provided through a limited set of collective investment vehicles and
separate accounts that deploy all or a subset of AQR's investment strategies. These investment products span
from aggressive high volatility market-neutral hedge funds, to low volatility benchmark-driven traditional
products. AQR's founder is
Clifford S. Asness, a
Goldman alumni where he was Director of Quantitative Research for the Asset Management Division responsible for
building quantitative models to add value in global equity, fixed income and currency markets.
H
e
was another of Fama's students at the
University
of
Chicago
.
Goldman was putting its own money down
alongside that of select outside investors, an expression of its faith in the fund's ability to recoup. The
situation differed from that of Bear Stearns which had to loan $1.6 billion to bail out one of two internal
hedge funds that had big problems with exposure to mortgage-related securities.
The
First Wave of Warnings
Goldman, one of the world's premiere
financial companies, had joined Bear Stearns and
France
's
BNP Paribas in revealing that its hedge funds had been hit by the credit market crisis. Bear Stearns earlier in
the summer disclosed that two of its multibillion dollar hedge funds were wiped out because of wrong bets on
mortgage-backed securities. BNP Paribas announced a few weeks later it would freeze three funds invested in US
asset-backed securities.
The assets of the two troubled Bear
Stearns hedge funds had been battered by turmoil in the credit market linked to sub-prime mortgage securities.
On
Jun 20, 2007
, $850 million of the funds' assets held as
collateral was sold at greatly discounted prices by their creditor, Merrill Lynch & Co. The assets sold
included mortgage-backed securities (MBS), collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and credit default swaps
(CDS). JP Morgan, another Bear Stearns creditor, had also planned an auction for some of the collateralized
assets of the Bear Stearns funds, but cancelled the auction to negotiate directly with the Bear Stearns funds
to unwind positions via private transactions to avoid setting a market price occasioned by market seizure.
The two Bear Stearns funds: High-Grade
Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund and High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund, run by
mortgage veteran Ralph Cioffi, were facing shut-down as the rescue plans fell apart. The funds had slumped in
the first four months of 2007 as the subprime mortgage market went against their positions and investors began
asking for their money back. The High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund sold roughly
$4 billion of subprime mortgage-backed securities in mid June, selling its highest-rated and most heavily
traded securities first to raise cash to meet redemption requests from investors and margin calls from
creditors, leaving the riskier, lower-rated assets in its portfolio that had difficulty finding buyers.
Collateral Debt Obligation Crisis
CDOs are illiquid assets that normally
trade only infrequently as institutional investor had not intended to trade such securities. Demand for them
is not strong even in normal times. In a credit crunch, demand became extremely weak. Sellers typically give
investors one or two days to price the assets and bid in order to get the best price. Bid lists were now sent
out for execution within roughly an hour, which was unusual and suggested that sellers were keen to sell the
assets quickly at any price.
Bear Stearns' High-Grade Structured
Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund sold close to $4 billion worth of AAA and AA rated securities. The
fund was started less than a year ago with $600 million in assets, but used leverage to expand its holdings to
more than $6 billion. But subprime mortgage trades that went wrong left the fund down 23% in the first four
months of 2007. The fund was selling its highest-rated and most tradable securities first to raise cash to meet
expected redemption requests and margin calls. Buyers were found for the bonds but the fund still had to retain
lower-rated subprime mortgage-based securities which had triggered its losses earlier in the year.
Bear Stearns was highly leveraged in an
illiquid market and was faced with the prospect that its funds were going to start getting margin calls so it
tried to sell ahead of being in the worst spot possible. Subprime mortgages were offered at low initial rates
to home buyers with blemished credit ratings who could not carry the adjusted payments if and when rates rise.
This was not a problem as long as prices for houses continued to rise, allowing the lenders to shift loan
repayment assurance from the borrower's income to the rising value of the collateral. Thus subprime mortgages
lenders were not particularly concerned about borrower income for they were merely using home buyers as needed
intermediaries to profit from the debt–driven housing boom. This strategy worked until the debt balloon burst.
Rising delinquencies and defaults in this once-booming part of the mortgage market had triggered a credit
crunch earlier in the year that left several lenders bankrupt. Many hedge funds had generated big gains for
several years on this unstainable liquidity boom. The premature bears who shorted the market repeated lost
money as the Fed continued to feed the debt balloon to sustain the unsustainable.
As delinquencies and foreclosures rose
finally, losses first hit the riskiest tranches of subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The losses were
subsequently transmitted to collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) which invested in the higher-rated tranches
of subprime MBS that did not have an active market since they were bought by institutions with the intention to
hold until maturity. Such securities were super safe as long as their ratings remain high.
Hedge funds have become big
credit-market players in recent years, and many firms trade the riskiest tranches of subprime MBS and
higher-rated CDOs tranches to profit from the return spread. While some funds, such those managed by Cheyne
Capital and Cambridge Place Investment Management, had suffered sudden losses, some hedge funds made handsome
gains in February 2007 betting that a subprime mortgage crisis would hit.
As the number of market participants
increased and the packaging of the CDO became more exoteric over the liquidity boom years, it became impossible
to know who were holding the "toxic" tranches and how precisely the losses would spread, since the risk profile
of each tranche would be affected by the default rates of other tranches. The difficulty in identifying the
precise locations of risk exposure caused a sharp rise in perceived risk exposure system wide. This sudden risk
aversion led to rating downgrades of the high-rated tranches, forcing their holders to sell into a market with
few buyers.
The Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, which monitors risk in the banking system, tracks bank holdings of MBS, but not specific tranches
of CDOs. It has no information on which bank holds CDOs and how much, since such instruments are held by the
finance subsidiaries of bank holding companies, off the balance sheets of banks. Asian investors, particularly
those in
Japan
, had been eager to seek
off-shore assets yielding more than the near zero or even negative interest rates offered at home. Many
Japanese as well as foreign investors participated in currency "carry trade" to arbitrage interest rate spreads
between the Japanese yen and other higher interest rate currencies and assets denominated in dollars, fueling a
liquidity boom in US markets. The
US
trade
deficit fed the
US
capital account surplus as
the surplus trade partners found that they could not convert the dollars they earned from export to the
US
into local currencies without suffering undesirable rise in money supply.
The trade surplus dollars went into the
US
credit market.
The growth of CDOs has been explosive
during the past decade. In 1995, there were hardly any. By 2006, more than $500 billion worth was issued. About
40% of CDO collateral was residential MBS, with three quarters in subprime and home-equity loans, and the rest
in high-rated prime home loans. CDOs became an important part of the mortgage market because their issuers also
bought the riskier tranches of MBS that others investors shunned. The high-rated tranches of MBS were sold
easily to pension funds and insurers. But the ultra-high rated tranches paid such low returns because of their
perceived safety that few buyers were interested, forcing the banks which structured them to hold them
themselves. The issuers often hold the more riskier tranches to sell at later dates for profit when the value
of the collateral rose with rising home prices. But when the riskier tranches could not be sold as home prices
fell and mortgage default rose, the higher rating tranches suffered rating drops and institutional buyers were
prevented by regulation to hold the ones they had bought and from buying new ones. When the ultra safe
tranches held by banks are downgraded, banks are forced to writedown their value. With CDOs withdrawing from
the residential MBS market, mortgage lenders were unable to sell the loans they had originated for new funds to
finance new mortgages.
The chain of derivative structures that
turns home loans into CDOs begins when a mortgage is packaged together with other mortgages into an MBS. The
MBS is then sliced up into different CDO tranches that pay on a range of interest rates tied to risk levels.
Mortgage payments go first to the highest-rated tranches with the lowest interest rates. The remaining funds
then flows down to the next risky tranches until all are paid. The riskiest CDO tranches get paid last, but
they offer the highest interest rates to attract investor with strong risk appetite.
In theory, all trenches have the same
risk/return ratio. As the liquidity boom has gone on for years with the help of the Fed, historical data would
suggest that risks of default should be minimal. Yet when losses actually occurred from unanticipated mortgage
defaults and foreclosures, the riskiest tranches were hit first, while the top-rated tranches were hit last.
But until losses occurred, the riskier tranches got the higher returns. Over the years, the riskier tranches
generated big profit for hedge funds when the risks did not materialize to overwhelm the high returns. The
problem was that the profitability drove new issues of MBS at a faster pace than maturing MBS, with the number
and amount of outstanding securities getting bigger with each passing year, exposing investors to aggregate
risk higher than the accumulated gains. Because of the complexity and opacity of the CDO market, institutional
investors were not alerted by rating agencies of the fact that their individual safety actually caused a sharp
rise in systemic risk. They felt comfortable as long as assets they acquired were rated AAA and deemed
bankruptcy-remote, not realizing the system might seize up some Wednesday morning. That Wednesday came on
August 15, 2007
.
CDOs, a cross between an investment
fund and an asset-backed security (ABS), perform this slicing process of risk/reward unbundling repeatedly to
keep money recycling and money supply growing in the mortgage market. While CDOs lubricate the credit market to
make more home financing affordable to more home buyers, it raises the price of home and its financing cost
beyond the carrying capability of almost all home buyers when the bursting of the debt bubble resets interest
rates to normal levels, making a rising default rate inevitable.
Hedge funds are attracted by the high
returns offered by the lowest-rated tranches of subprime MBS undbubled by CDOs, the so-called equity tranches
which sink underwater as home prices fall. Many hedge funds arbitrage the wide return spread with low-cost
funds borrowed in the commercial paper market and magnify the return with high leverage through bank loans.
They often hedge against risk by holding derivatives that are expected to rise in value when housing prices
fall, such as interest rate swaps. They also hedge against defaults with credit default swaps. These hedges
failed when risk was re-priced by the market at rollover time for short-term securities which could be every 30
days.
CDOs
and Commercial Paper
Much of the money used to buy CDOs come
form the commercial paper market. Commercial paper consists of short-term, unsecured promissary notes issued
primarily by financial and non-financial corporations. Maturities range up to 270 days but average about 30
days. Many companies use commercial paper to raise cash needed for current transactions, and many find it to be
a lower-cost alternative to bank loans. Financial companies use high-rated CDO tranches as collateral to back
their commercial paper issues.
Because commercial paper maturities do
not exceed nine months and proceeds typically are used only for current transactions, the notes are exempt from
registration as securities with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Large institutions have long managed
their short-term cash needs by buying and selling securities in the money market since the early 1970's. Today,
a broad array of domestic and foreign investors uses these versatile, short-term securities to help to make the
money market the largest, most efficient credit market in the world driving assets from $4 billion in 1975 to
more than $1.8 trillion today. This money market is a fixed income market, similar to the bond market. The
major difference being that the money market specializes in very short term debt securities.
The money market is a securities market
dealing in short-term debt and monetary instruments. Money market instruments are forms of debt that mature in
less than one year and are very liquid but traded only high denominations. The easiest way for individual
investor to gain access is through money market mutual funds, or sometimes through a money market bank account.
These accounts and funds pool together the assets of thousands of investors and buy the money market securities
on their behalf.
Borrowing short-term money from banks
is often a labored and uneasy situation for many corporations. Their desire to avoid banks as much as they can
has led to the popularity of commercial paper. For the most part, commercial paper is a very safe investment
because the financial situation of a large company can easily be predicted over a few months. Furthermore,
typically only companies with high credit ratings and credit worthiness issue commercial paper and over the
past 35 years there have only been a handful of cases where corporations defaulted on their commercial paper
repayment.
ABCP
Conduits
Asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) is
a device used by banks to get operating assets, such as trade receivables, funded by the issuance of
securities. Traditionally, banks devised ABCP conduits as a device to put their current asset credits off their
balance sheets and yet provide liquidity support to their clients. Conduits raise money by selling short-term
debt and using the proceeds to invest in assets with longer maturities, like mortgage-backed bonds. Conduits
typically have guarantees from banks, which promise to lend them money up to the amount of the SIVs the banks
structure.
A bank with a client whose working
capital needs are funded by the bank can release the regulatory capital that is locked in this credit asset by
setting up a conduit, essentially a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that issues commercial paper, such as the
ones used by Enron that led to its downfall. The conduit will buy the receivables of the client and get the
same funded by issuance of commercial paper. The bank will be required to provide some liquidity support to the
conduit, as it is practically impossible to match the maturities of the commercial paper to the realization of
trade receivables. Thus, the credit asset is moved off the balance sheet giving the bank a regulatory relief.
Depending upon whether the bank provides full or partial liquidity support to the conduit, ABCP can be either
fully supported or partly supported.
ABCP conduits are virtual subsets of
the parent bank. If the bank provides full liquidity support to the conduit, for regulatory purposes, the
liquidity support given by the bank may be treated as a direct credit substitute in which case the assets held
by the conduit are aggregated with those of the bank. ABCP conduits are also set up large issuers that are not
banks.
The key weakness in the entire credit
superstructure lies in the practice by intermediaries of credit to borrow short term to finance long term. This
term carry is magical in an expanding economy when the gap between short term and long term credit is narrower
than gains from long term asset appreciation. But in a contracting economy, it can be a fatal scenario,
particularly if falls in short term rates raise the credit rating requirement of the short term borrower,
putting previously qualified loans in technical default. Securities that face difficulty in rolling over at
maturity are known as "toxic" in the trade.
Lethal
Derivatives
The credit default swap market is a
microcosm of investor confidence. Credit default swaps are insurance for bad debt. Insured creditors are
compensated by the seller of the insurance if a debtor defaults on a loan. When the threat of default rises in
the market, the insurance premium rises, just as Katrina boosted hurricane insurance premium. This is known in
the business as re-pricing of risk. The cost of credit default swaps written on investment banks such as Bear
Stearns and Goldman Sachs and on commercial banks such as Citibank have soared in the past few months amid
worries that troubles in the subprime-mortgage market and the leveraged-buyout market could leave them with
massive loan defaults. The financial industry tracks mortgage-linked securities via the ABX index, which
calculates the prices of a basket of assets backed by subprime loans.
The ongoing crisis in the
US
housing market has pushed the ABX, a key mortgage-linked derivatives index,
to new lows, threatening to unleash a further bout of credit market upheaval. Price swing in the ABX can
reduce the value of ultra-safe credit instruments that carried high credit ratings, forcing banks and other
regulated investors to make further large write-downs on their credit market holdings, on top of the huge
losses several major
US
and foreign banks
suffered from credit turmoil that began in August.
As the
US
mortgages market deteriorates, financial sector losses will accumulate.
Secondary market price movements indicate that losses on mortgage inventory are likely to be larger in coming
quarters. Before July, the part of the ABX index that tracks AAA debt was trading almost at face value.
However, in the last three weeks in October, it has fallen sharply due to downgrades by credit rating agencies
and continuing bad data from the housing sector.
As a result, the so-called ABX 07-1
index – which tracks AAA mortgage bonds originated in the first half of this year – fell to a record low close
of 79 on October 30, meaning that traders reckon these bonds are worth only 79 cents on the dollar. The ABX
"BBB" 07-1 index measures the performance of loans made during the second half of 2006, when many home purchase
loans were made to buyers with shaky credit standings. The index traded around 44, or 44 cents on a dollar,
nearly its weakest level ever.
The swing is creating real pain for
investors, since in recent years numerous firms have created trading strategies which have loaded large debt
levels onto these "safe" securities, precisely because these instruments were not expected to fluctuate in
price. Investors normally hold such "safe" securities to maturity thus there is no demand for a ready market
for them. But as the credit rating of these securities falls, investor cannot find buyer for them at any
reasonable price. The last week in October saw the worst falls in the ABX market this year, especially higher
up the capital structure with highly rated debt.
Pension funds and insurance companies
hold the less risky, senior CDO tranches because regulatory rules restrict them from investing in lower-rated
securities. When the low-rated tranches default in large numbers, the high-rated tranches lose rating and these
regulated institutions are forced to sell their non-conforming holdings into a market with few buyers.
Pension funds, insurance companies and
university endowment funds have also invested in hedge funds that hold the riskier CDO tranches to get higher
returns. In recent years, CDO issuance has exploded and many hedge funds have been buying the riskiest
tranches of MBS that are backed by subprime loans. Mortgages closed by
4 pm
New York
time were sent electronically to back-office locations in
India
to be packaged into CDO tranches and resent electronically to
New York
at
9:30 am
the next day to be sold
in the credit market, generating huge fees and profits for Wall Street firms every day.
Rating
Agencies Under Pressure
Moody's Investors Services, an
influential rating agency, warned in late July that defaults and downgrades of subprime MBS could have "severe"
consequences for CDOs that invested heavily in the sector. CDOs that Moody's rated from 2003 to 2006 had 45%
exposure to subprime MBS on average. But that varied widely from almost zero to 90% with recent CDOs having the
high concentrations of such collateral, the potential downgrade for which could be 10 or more notches in
rating. The secondary market for CDOs responded to these heightened risks, pushing prices down and widening
spreads - the difference between interest rates on riskier debt and measures of short-term borrowing costs such
as the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) or commercial paper rates. Spreads on BBB-rated asset-backed
securities (ABS) CDOs over LIBOR have widened by roughly 125 basis points to 657 basis points since the end of
2006.
Structured investment vehicles (SIVs)
Although the first structured
investment vehicles (SIVs) appeared in the structured finance world some 15 years ago, and the growth of SIVs
had been somewhat limited, (there are fewer than 20 vehicles globally), there is no doubt that these
sophisticated bankruptcy-remote structures have strongly influenced other funding vehicles and asset management
businesses. Since 2002, there has been renewed interest by different types of financial institutions in
starting up SIVs or SIV-like structures with evolved capital structures embracing new classes of financial
instruments.
The first SIVs were founded in the
mid-1980s as bankruptcy-remote entities and were sponsored by large banks or investment managers for the
purpose of generating leveraged returns by exploiting the differences in yields between the longer-dated assets
managed and the short-term liabilities issued. The balance sheet of a structured investment vehicle typically
contains assets such as asset-backed securities (ABS) and other high-grade securities that are funded through
issued liabilities in the form of commercial paper (CP) and medium-term note (MTN) and subordinate capital
notes. SIVs typically hedge out all interest and currency risks using swaps and other derivative instruments.
Overall, CP and MTN issuance shot up
dramatically in 2004, up US$25.7 billion to US$133.1 billion at year-end, with capital investments at an
all-time high. In general, advances in capital structures and asset portfolio management have invigorated
interest from investors and prospective sponsors.
SIVs,
Conduits and Asset-Backed Commercial Paper (ABCP)
SIVs are typically funded in the low
interest short-term asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market to invest in high-return long-term securities
for profit. The viability of the stratagem depends on the ability to roll over the short-term commercial paper
when they mature in typically less than 120 days. To keep the liquidity risk at a minimum, issuers stagger the
maturity so that only a small portion of the loan needs to be refunded in any one week. The credit market
crisis in mid 2007 created a break in short-term debt rollovers to cause a funding mismatch in long-term assets
positions because investors have stopped buying new ABCP issued by some SIVs and conduits.
What separates a SIV from other
investment vehicles is the nature of its ongoing relationship with rating agencies – from the originating
qualification process to the continuous monitoring of its asset diversification, risk management and funding
practices. These guidelines include frequent reporting of operating parameters such as portfolio credit
quality, portfolio diversification, asset and liability maturity, market risk limitations, leverage and capital
adequacy requirements, and liquidity requirements.
The rigorous monitoring allows SIVs to
be highly capital efficient, enabling them to be leveraged on an average of 12 times the capital base, with
exceptions. Unlike related traditional asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) conduits, SIVs do not require 100%
liquidity support and credit enhancement.
Many SIVs faced trouble in the summer
of 2007 as they were hit by both sharp falls in the value of their investments, mainly financial debt and
asset-backed bonds, and a lack of access to new refinancing as investors shunned short-term commercial paper
debt linked to asset-backed securities (ABCP).
Most CDOs are cash flow transactions
not directly sensitive to the market value of their underlying assets as long as the cash flow is undisturbed.
But if a CDO manager needs to sell an asset quickly even at a loss because of ratings agency downgrade, the CDO
manager will be forced to carry the remaining assets at a lower value, upsetting both collateral for the agreed
cash flow and the balance sheet of the participants.
While some hedge funds have profited
from the sublime mortgage meltdown, other funds have been hit hard, resulting in a deteriorating financial
sector as asset values plummeted faster than potential gains by vultures.
Other big lenders that raised warning
flags earlier about bad-performing debt portfolios included Washington Mutual, New Century Financial and
Marshall & IIsley Corporation. Foreclosures jumped 35% in December 2006 versus a year earlier. For the fifth
straight month, more than 100,000 properties entered foreclosure because the owner couldn't keep up with their
loan payments. In January 2007, Washington Mutual disclosed that its mortgage business lost $122 million in the
fourth quarter, highlighting the weak sub-prime market.
New
York Attorney General Sues Appraisal Company
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo,
a potential Democrat gubernatorial candidate for New York, has filed suit against eAppraiseIT (EA), a real
estate appraisal management subsidiary of First American Corporation, for having "caved to pressure from
Washington Mutual" to inflate property values of homes. Washington Mutual allegedly complained to EA that "its
appraisals weren't high enough." Cuomo said in a statement that "consumers are harmed because they are misled
as to the value of their homes, increasing the risk of foreclosure and hindering their ability to make sound
economic decisions. Investors are hurt by such fraud because it skews the value and risk of loans that are sold
in financial markets." The bank is also facing a number of class action suits from irate borrowers.
Shares of government sponsored mortgage
lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tumbled after receiving subpoenas seeking information on loans they bought
from Washington Mutual and other banks. Cuomo said he uncovered a "pattern of collusion" between lenders and
appraisers, and is seeking documents that may prove the lenders inflated appraisal values. The subpoenas also
seek information on Fannie and Freddie's due diligence practices. If decided that they own or guarantee
mortgages with inflated appraisals, company policy dictates that the lenders buy back the loans. "In order to
fulfill their duty to consumers and investors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must ensure that Washington Mutual's
mortgages have not been corrupted by inflated appraisals," Cuomo said. In 2007, WaMu is Fannie Mae's
third-largest loan provider, selling it $24.7 billion and Freddie Mac's fourteenth largest at $7.8 billion.
Washingtom Mutual share fell 17% after it announced it would set aside $1.3 billion fourth quarter 2007 for
credit losses, up from $967 million in the third quarter.
Mortgage Lenders
Fell Like Flies
The handwriting had been clearly on the wall. Back on February 6, New Century
Financial shares plunged 29% after the mortgage services provider slashed its forecast for loan production
for 2007 because early-payment defaults and loan repurchases had led to tighter underwriting guidelines. A week
later, Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp Inc. which sold Alt-A mortgages for borrowers who were not
required to submit conforming income and financial documents necessary to quality for conventional conforming
mortgages, warned that its quarterly earnings would come in well short of analyst expectations because of
increased loan losses and delinquencies. Other lenders were also squeezed by deteriorating credit. Marshall &
IIsley reported a jump in non-performing assets in the quarter, while Bank of the Ozarks reported a 69%
increase in problem loans. US Bancorp predicted an increase in retail loan charge-offs and commercial loan
losses in coming quarters. Wells Fargo warned it expected net credit losses from wholesale banking to increase
in 2007.
Britain
's
Barclays PLC, in the midst of an unsuccessful takeover battle for ABN Amro, was reported as among the banks
that were having trouble with bad loans and its hedge funds. Barclays Global Investors was one of the world's
biggest fund managers, with some $2 trillion in assets under management.
The Case of Countrywide Financial
Non-conforming mortgages securities packaged by
Countrywide Financial needed to be sold in the private, secondary market to alternative investors, instead of
the agency market. On
August 3, 2007
, this secondary market
collapsed and essentially stopped the sales of most non-conforming securities. Alt-A mortgages (loans given to
self-declared creditworthy borrowers without supporting documentation) completely stopped trading and the
seizure extended to even AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities. Only securities with conforming mortgages were
trading. Unfazed, Countrywide Financial issued a reassuring statement that its mortgage business had access to
a nearly $50 billion funding cushion.
In reality, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown put
Countrywide Financial, along with many other mortgage lenders, in a crisis situation of holding drastically
devalued loan portfolios that could not be sold at any price. Amid rising defaults, investors have fled from
mortgage-related investments, drying up market demand. The ongoing credit crunch threatened Countrywide's
normal access to cash.
After the collapse of American Home
Mortgage on August 6, the market's attention returned to Countrywide Financial which at the time had issued
about 17% of all mortgages in the
United States
.
Days later, Countrywide Financial disclosed to the SEC that disruptions in the secondary mortgage markets could
adversely affect it financially. The news raised speculation that Countrywide was a potential bankruptcy risk.
On August 10, a run on the Countrywide Bank began as the secondary mortgage market shutdown, curtailing new
mortgage funding.
The perceived risk of Countrywide bonds
rose sharply. Credit ratings agencies downgraded Countrywide to near
junk
status. The cost of insuring
its bonds rose 22% overnight. This development limited Countrywide access to the short-term commercial paper
debt market which normally provides cheaper money than bank loans. Institutional investors were trying
desperately to unload outstanding Countrywide paper held in their portfolios. Some 50 other mortgage lenders
had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Countrywide Financial was cited as a possible bankruptcy risk
by Merrill Lynch and others on August 15. This combined with news that its ability to issue new commercial
paper might be severely hampered put severe pressure on the stock. Countrywide shares fell $3.17 to $21.29,
which was its biggest fall in a single day since the crash of 1987 when the shares fell 50% for the year. The
52-week low to date was $12.07 per share.
On Thursday, August 16, having
expressed concerns over liquidity because of the decline of the secondary market for securitized mortgage
obligations, Countrywide also announced its intention to draw on the entire $11.5 billion credit line from a
group of 40 banks. On Friday August 17, many depositors sought to withdraw their bank accounts from
Countrywide. It also planned to make 90% of its loans conforming. By this point stock shares had lost about
75% of their peak value and speculation of bankruptcy broadened.
The Fed
Discount Window Accepts Toxic Collateral from Banks
At the same time the Federal Reserve
lowered the discount rate 50 basis points in a last-minute, early morning conference call. The Fed also
accepted $17.2 billion in repurchase agreements for mortgage backed securities to provide liquidity in the
credit market. This helped calm the stock market and investors promptly responded positively with the Dow
posting temporary gains.
Additionally, Countrywide was forced to
restate income it had claimed from accrued but unpaid interest on "exotic" mortgages in which the initial pay
rate was less than the amortization rate. By mid 2007, it became apparent much of this accrued interest had
become uncollectible. In a letter dated August 20, Federal Reserve agreed to waive banking regulations at the
request of Citigroup and Bank of America to exempt both banks from rules that limited the amount that
federally-insured banks can lend to related brokerage companies to 10% of bank capital, by increasing the limit
to 30%. Until then, banking regulations restricted banks with federally insured deposits from putting
themselves at risk by brokerage subsidiaries' activities. On August 23, Citibank and Bank of America said that
they and two other banks accessed $500 million in 30-day financing at the Fed's discount window at the new low
rate of 5.25%.
On the next day, Countrywide Financial
obtained $2 billion of new capital from Bank of America Corp, the banking holding parent. In exchange, the Bank
of America brokerage arm would get convertible preferred stock yielding 7.3%, a profitable spread over its Fed
discount rate of 5.25% and the Fed funds rate of 4.75%. The preferred stocks can be converted into common stock
at $18 per share (trading around $12 on October 25). This gave the distressed mortgage lender a much-needed
cash infusion amid a crippling credit crunch. Countrywide shares soared 20.01%, or $4.37, to $26.19 after hours
on the news. Bank of America shares rose 1.9%, or 98 cents, to $52.63 (trading around $46.75 on October 25
after announcing third quarter earning dropping 32%).
SEC to
Scrutinize Security Valuation
The Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) is reportedly looking into the accounting and securities valuation practices at Wall Street investment
banks to ensure consistency and clarity for investors. Meanwhile, major financial institutions were lining up
to announce write-downs on their sub-prime mortgage exposures. Merrill Lynch wrote down $5.5 billion which was
later revised to $8 billion; Citigroup $3.3 billion which was later revised to $11 billion; Goldman Sachs $1.7
billion, Lehman Brothers $1 billion, Morgan Stanley $0.9 billion and Bear Sterns $0.7 billion. Many in the
market expect further write downs in coming quarters. Already Merrill Lynch write down is widely put at more
than $14 billion and few believe that Citigroup's loss could be kept to $11 billion in coming quarters. The
heads of Merrill, UBS and Citigroup all resigned.
Wachovia, the fourth-largest
US
bank by assets, estimated on Friday, November 9 that the value of its
subprime mortgage-related securities had fallen $1.1 billion in October. It said loan-loss provisions would be
increased by as much as $600 million in the fourth quarter due to "dramatic declines" in home values. The
announcement came three weeks after Wachovia reported writedowns of $1.3 billion in the third quarter and
posted its first earnings drop in six years.
Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest
U.S.
securities firm, said on November 7 its subprime mortgages and related
securities lost $3.7 billion in the past two months, after prices sank further than the firm's traders
anticipated. The decline may cut fourth-quarter earnings by $2.5 billion. Colm Kelleher, Morgan Stanley chief
financial officer to the Financial Times in an interview: "You need to see some of these long positions
reduced, you need to see buyers coming in, you need to see an easing of liquidity in the market." Kelleher said
credit markets would take three or four quarters to recover, instead of the one or two he estimated when the
firm reported third-quarter results on September 19.
Concerns about potential writedowns at
Morgan Stanley have pushed the stock lower this week, bringing the year-to-date decline to 24 percent. The
stock fell $3.32, or 6.9%, to $51.19 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on November 8. Analysts
estimate the firm would lose about $4 billion on asset- backed securities and collateralized debt obligations
and expected the remaining losses to be booked on residual mortgage interest and on credit lines to structured
investment vehicles.
Being
Right Can lead to Losses through Aggressive Hedging
Part of the losses Morgan Stanley
incurred stemmed from derivative contracts the firm's proprietary trading unit wrote earlier in the year. The
traders anticipated correctly a decline in the value of subprime securities and took up short positions and the
contracts made money for the firm in the second quarter. But the contracts started losing money when prices
fell below the level the traders had anticipated. As markets continued to decline, the firm's risk exposure
swung from short, to flat to long because the structure of the book had big negative convexity. For any given
bond, a graph of the relationship between price and yield is a convex curve rather than a linear straight-line.
As a bond's price goes up, its yield goes down, and vice versa. The degree to which the graph is curved shows
how much a bond's yield changes in response to a change in price. Negative convexity gives the investor a
greater loss in the event of a 50 basis points drop in yields than his gain in the event of a 50 basis points
rise in yields. For any given move in interest rates, the downside is bigger than the upside to give a built-in
loss for a short position with negative convexity. Sophisticated traders can create instruments which have so
much negative convexity that the price might start off moving in one direction as yields start moving, and then
eventually start moving in the opposite direction beyond a given range. The hedge then begins to cannibalize
profitability.For any given move in interest rates, the downside is bigger than the upside to give a built-in
loss for a short position with negative convexity, thus producing losses. For positive convexity, the upside is
bigger than the down side, thus giving short positions an advantage. Morgan Stanley's short positions
allegedly turned against them by negative convexity; at least that was how they explained the loss. Some
analysts think there must be more than meets the eye, assuming Morgan management itself even know. The people
who put on the bad trades were fired and not there to answer questions.
It is one thing to lose money, but it
is quite another to lose money without knowing why and how. Morgan Stanley, Citibank, and the rest still have
difficulty figuring out how they lost money last quarter and how much loss is waiting in future quarters. They
only know the numbers came in very bad.
SEC
Concern over Accuracy of Writedowns
US
market regulators have been working with investment banks and accounting
firms over the past few months to keep tabs on how they are dealing with changes to the accounting treatment of
securities that were introduced this year by the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The SEC has
been particularly concerned during the third quarter earnings season, which resulted in billions of dollars in
write-downs at investment banks after problems in the sub-prime mortgage markets that triggered a wider credit
crisis. At issue is whether these write-downs accurately reflect the total financial impact of the credit
crisis on the banks and their investors.
The
SMELEC Super Fund Proposal
Citigroup, Bank of America and JP
Morgan/Chase announced on Monday, October 15, plans for a super fund to buy mortgage-linked securities in an
attempt to allay fears of a downward price-spiral that would hit the balance sheets of big banks.
US
banks collectively would put up credit guarantees up to $100 billion for
the fund, named the Single-Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit (SMLEC).
The concept of an SMLEC first emerged
three weeks earlier when the US Treasury summoned leading bankers to discuss ways to revive the mortgage-linked
securities market and to deal with the threat to the credit market posed by structured investment vehicles
(SIVs) and conduits. The Treasury said it acted as a "neutral third party" in the discussions, but Henry
Paulson, Treasury secretary, was reportedly strongly in support of the initiative.
Robert Steel, under-secretary for
domestic finance, led the US Treasury side of the discussions, with the day-to-day work handled by Anthony
Ryan, assistant secretary. The plan is an attempt to address concerns about SIVs and conduits, vehicles that
are off-balance sheet but closely affiliated to banks.
Fears emerged that some SIVs might be
pushed into forced sales of assets, prompting further declines in the market price of mortgage-linked
securities as a class that could hurt the balance sheets of all lending institutions. SMLEC, designed as a
superfund to preserve the theoretical value of the high-rated tranches by creating a ready buyer for them, is
likely to be unpopular with some banks and non-bank institutions which have already started trading in
distressed low-rated subprime securities at knockdown prices.
SMLEC as proposed is intended as a
restructuring vehicle, repackaging credit securities to make them more transparent than existing SIV commercial
paper and less risky to investors. It would only deal in "highly-rated" assets. Although it is envisaged that
the scheme will initially focus on vehicles in the dollar market held by US banks, it is expected to extend to
non-US banks as well, and may even be extended to the euro market. The US Treasury declined to provide official
comment on the reported proposal.
In October, Citigroup Inc. posted a 57%
slump in third-quarter net income at $2.38 billion, or 47 cents a share, from $5.51 billion, or $1.10 a share,
a year earlier. The latest quarterly results included $1.35 billion of pretax write-down in the value of loans
that helped finance the leveraged-buyout boom and $1.56 billion of pretax losses tied to loans and sub-prime
mortgages. A couple of weeks after the SMLEC proposal, Citigroup announced a write down of $3.3 billion which
was later revised to $11 billion and that its Chairman resigned after an emergency board meeting on the first
Saturday of November.
SMLEC is in essence a big bet that a
consortium of banking giants, at the prodding of the US Treasury, can persuade investors to pour new money into
the troubled credit market to buy the assets of troubled SIVs to prevent the pending loss faced by the
sponsoring institutions.
Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman,
immediately raised serious doubts over SMLEC, warning that it could prevent the market from establishing true
clearing prices for asset-backed securities. "It is not clear to me that the benefits exceed the risks,"
Greenspan told
Emerging Markets
, adding, "The experience I have had with that sort of intervention is
very mixed." As the person most responsible for a macro liquidity boom that had prevented "the market from
establishing true clearing prices for assets of all types", Greenspan is critical of the effort of the Treasury
to do the same thing on a micro level to save the banking system.
Greenspan explained: "What creates
strong markets is a belief in the investment community that everybody has been scared out of the market,
pressed prices too low and there are wildly attractive bargaining prices out there." He added: "if you
intervene in the system, the vultures stay away. The vultures are sometimes very useful." Goldman Sachs must
have heard the message loud and clear and decided to act as its own home-grown vulture.
Greenspan's remarks came amid growing
speculation on Wall Street that the current Federal Reserve sees potential benefits in the SMLEC proposal in
terms of preventing a possible fire sale of assets, and does not think it has been designed to allow financial
institutions to avoid recognizing losses. But the Fed is concern that the superfund plan could exacerbate
growing investor anxiety, and thinks markets might normalize faster if at least some troubled SIV assets were
sold in the market to allow prices to find a floor. Fed officials have been officially silent on the superfund
plan, leading to the impression that the Fed wants to keep its distance. The Treasury regards the Fed's
silence as simply reflecting the separation of powers and responsibilities between the institutions. In
reality, the Treasury leads the Fed on issues of national economic security, notwithstanding the Fed's claim of
independence.
Greenspan defended the 1998
Fed-sponsored rescue of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) by a group of creditor banks, saying it worked
because it took a set of assets that would otherwise have been dumped at fire-sale prices off the market,
allowing prices of the remaining assets to find a true equilibrium. But he said today "we are dealing with a
much larger market." To those who still have reliable memory, the justification for the Fed managed rescue of
LTCM was to prevent the total collapse of the financial market because of the dominant size and high leverage
of LTCM. Other distressed hedge funds would also have survived with a Fed managed bailout, but they did not
qualify as being "too big to fail".
Frederic Mishkin, a Federal Reserve
governor, admitted to the Financial Times that although the central bank could use monetary policy to offset
the macroeconomic risk arising from the credit squeeze, it was "powerless" to deal with "valuation risk" – the
difficulty assessing the value of complex or opaque securities.
Robert J Shiller, Yale economist of "
Irrational
Exuberance
" fame (2000), writing in the October 14 edition of the New York Times:
Sniffles That Precede
a Recession
: "While it may seem as though these private banks could have met by themselves and agreed to
create a fund without pressure from Treasury to do so, apparently there are times when the private sector
cannot take care of itself and it needs the government to intervene and prod it in the right direction, at
least that appears to be the attitude at Treasury (and I wonder if there will be government guarantees of any
sort as part of the bargain, a situation that rules out the private sector doing it on its own, but also a
situation that more explicitly recognizes the existence of market failure and the need for government
intervention to overcome it). It would be refreshing to see this same attitude extended by the administration
to other markets that cannot coordinate properly or that suffer from significant market failures of other
types, markets that produce outcomes where, say, children are left without health coverage. But don't get your
hopes up."
Warren Buffett, the Pied Piper of other
awed investors, told Fox Business Network that "pooling a bunch of mortgages, changing the ownership" would not
change the viability of the mortgage instrument itself. "It would be better to have them on the balance sheets
so everyone would know what's going on." Bill Gross, chief investment officer of Pimco, the giant bond fund
manager, called the superfund idea "pretty lame". Investors need to know what their portfolio is really worth
at any moment in time, not merely constructed value if conditions should hold.
"... The reason they endlessly get it wrong, of course, is that they listen to the exiles in the US and elsewhere. Those exiles still mainly come from the old upper classes, with their eternal sense of entitlement to power, and their air-tickets ready in their pockets to fly back to Tehran and take back their positions under the Shah. Because of course, the Iranian revolution was one of the first populist movements, where the religious regime appealed directly to "the people", and the upper classes were cut out. The system has worked well - "the people" have continued to vote for the regime, naturally being a majority. ..."
There was a distinct change earlier this year, after the second US fusillade of cruise
missiles, and the Israeli bombing of "Iranian" bases in Syria.
We were all expecting further military action, but nothing happened, in particular no more
Israeli action, although Iranian forces in Syria were hardly damaged.
Instead they started muttering about subversion of the Iranian state from the inside,
which is what b is writing about here. That was a big sign that the all-out assault on Iran
has been called off.
Why? Evidently because the military say no. The scenario was the same as the one back in
2012, the last time we thought to see Israeli aircraft getting permission from Saudi to do
their bombing runs on Iran, but it didn't happen then, because the Israeli military were
saying no. Evidently the position hasn't changed, I was relieved to discover, although the
propagandists claimed the plan is all worked out now, and Iran has little defence.
Well, internal subversion of the regime, then. Hasn't the US been attempting to do
precisely that for 40 years now, ever since the revolution overthrew the Shah in 1979? What
are the conditions which mean that they are going to succeed now, when they've failed for 40
years?
The reason they endlessly get it wrong, of course, is that they listen to the exiles
in the US and elsewhere. Those exiles still mainly come from the old upper classes, with
their eternal sense of entitlement to power, and their air-tickets ready in their pockets to
fly back to Tehran and take back their positions under the Shah. Because of course, the
Iranian revolution was one of the first populist movements, where the religious regime
appealed directly to "the people", and the upper classes were cut out. The system has worked
well - "the people" have continued to vote for the regime, naturally being a
majority.
I don't want to get into a historical disquisition (which in any case I've said before),
but the reason this works is that there's history behind it - I'm pretty sure that the
original Islamisation of Iran (I don't mean the Arab conquest, but the conversion of the
country) was a popular revolt against the pre-Islamic nationalist aristocracy, who didn't pay
any taxes. The present-day Iranian exiles attach themselves strongly to that old nationalist
aristocracy, including most academics of Iranian origin in western universities. They don't
seem to notice that the class they admire grindingly oppressed the poor, such that it led to
a revolution.
currently having an online debate about conditions in the crimea, specifically alleged
russian oppression of crimeans in 2018, but also conditions leading up to the initial
referendum (my opponents claim annexation or conquest, and cite a freedom house survey to back
it up--from what i can see freedom house is fully funded by the us govt). my understanding is
the us fomented the coup in ukraine, along with nato, as opposed to the ukrainian people
rebelling against a russian puppet, which is the us line i believe. any articles or sources
detailing the us role in all this, or rebutting claims that crimeans are being terrified into
silence in 2018 about russian oppression, would be appreciated.
About half of the respondents admit to having been taken by surprise by Russia's actions in
2014. Interestingly, there is agreement among the Crimean population, including the Crimean
Tatars, that successive Ukrainian governments had neglected the region. Roughly one third
of respondents pointed to this neglect as the main cause of the developments in 2014. ...
The majority of survey respondents agree with the statement that the different ethnic
groups in Crimea currently live peacefully side by side. Twenty percent disagree "fully" or
"rather" with this statement, thereby indicating both an uncertainty and unease with the
situation at the moment that reaches beyond the Crimean Tatar share of the population
(about 12 percent). This result is mirrored in the reaction to the ban on the main
political Crimean Tatar organization, the Mejlis, by the Russian authorities: 20 percent
"fully" or "rather" disagreed with this step, compared to 80 percent endorsing this policy.
... The survey clearly spells out the severe disruption of links to the rest of Ukraine,
limited travel to other parts of Russia, the absence of personal international reference
points, and a near-complete integration into the Russian media sphere.
This combination makes any change in the opinions of the majority of the Crimean
population on the annexation unlikely in the foreseeable future. However, it is also clear
that the Crimean population's high expectations in the Russian economy and trust in Russian
(but not Crimean) institutions needs to be carefully managed by Moscow in view of the
already strained financial situation of the majority of the Crimean population.
The authors are also cautious about drawing overly-optimistic conclusions about the present
time: "The risk of conflict emerging within Ukrainian society and growing serious remains,
based on noticeable differences among residents of different regions about the further
geopolitical direction the country should move in. There are also serious problems
connected to restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity and the model of coexistence with
those living in the regions that are currently occupied, how to reach reconciliation and
mutual understanding." ...
Joining the EU remains a strong desire among a majority of Ukrainians. In September
2016, 51% of those surveyed by the Rating Group put integration with the EU ahead of
joining Russia's Customs Union or some other association. Still, in Rating's September 2015
survey, 57% of Ukrainians did so, and in September 2014, 59% did. This noticeable decline
could be the result of a number of factors. For one thing, the Association Agreement did
not have a noticeable impact on the standard of living of most Ukrainians. Many Ukrainians
are also upset at what they see as the European Union's limp response to Russia's
aggression against their country. And the way the granting of a visa-free regime to the EU
has been dragged out for years and the obvious internal squabbles among the Union's members
have also left their imprint on Ukrainians.
Ukraine is a very diverse country. Trump coming to an agreement with Putin that eases
tensions instead of agreeing/dividing on spheres of influence would be their best hope.
pretzelattack@3 re: "...rebutting claims that crimeans are being terrified into silence in
2018 about russian oppression."
I honestly have not heard anything about actual oppression - just that some
Ukrainians and Tartars are still - today - not terribly happy with the
secession/annexation/transfer. Acts of civil disobedience were generally individual, "I don't
want to be part of Russia and I'm not signing these papers or paying taxes," kind of thing. I
know any polls of Crimeans are noted to be terribly flawed - neither the pro-Russian nor the
pro-Ukraine people trust anyone taking polls. They'll not answer or give an answer that seems
to agree with whatever 'side' the pollster might be from.
I can't see how this issue could be fairly considered without at least an acknowledgement
that in 1954, 1.1 million people in Crimea woke up one day to find they were now citizens of
the Ukraine SSR. No polls, no vote, no discussion and no terribly good reasons.
If you need sources to back up your argument that the US helped to foment the Maidan
uprising that overthrew the Yanukovych government, here are a couple that feature a video and
a transcript of a phone conversation.
Information CLearing House: Victoria Nuland [former US Assistant Secretary of State for
Europe during Obama administration] Admits: US Has Invested $5 Billion In The Development of
Ukrainian "Democratic Institutions" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm
The article includes the video of the speech Nuland gave to the Washington press corp in
December 2013 in which she talks about "investing" the $5 billion.
This is the famous phone call in which Nuland utters her most memorable lines: "Yats
[Yatsenyuk] is the guy [for deputy prime minister]" and "Fuck the EU".
-----
I have also found details of the Korsun massacre incident that occurred on 20 February
2014. I had known about this massacre but in a hazy way and had thought only a few people had
been killed. However this incident is much more grave and this was the stimulus for the
Crimeans to organise their independence referendum and break away from Ukraine.
Eight buses of Crimean supporters of the Yanukovych government were returning to Crimea
when the convoy was ambushed by Nazi thugs (who had known of the convoy's movements in
advance). The thugs ordered everyone off the buses, beat them up and tortured them. Several
people were killed.
"Americans prepared very seriously and thoroughly for their entrance into Crimea, –
said a member of the Federation Council Committee on defense and security, Dmitry Sablin.
– A year before the events on Maidan in Kiev, they made repair estimates of a number of
buildings in Sevastopol and in Simferopol, where they planned to house the headquarters and
intelligence units. Military airfields and garrisons, which then belonged to Ukraine, they
considered as their own military installations and even sent instructions for their
conversion to NATO standards. In the plans of the U.S. military April 2014 was the start time
of upgrades in Crimea. It seemed to them that the issue has been settled. But the referendum
had thrown off their plans, and on March 18, Crimea became Russian again, where the overseas
guests were no longer welcome. Americans later themselves acknowledged that the Russians
outplayed them on all counts. Well, and from helplessness imposed sanctions -- as a revenge
for Crimea".
This is the tender put out by the US Navy to invite private companies to propose
renovation plans for a school for naval officers' children in the military base in
Sevastopol.
Sabine @6: On political/national/ethnic determinations.
It is a messy situation. I had thought one of the reasons we hate the Nazis is because
ethno-nationalism is evil. And yet, most of the West's leaders fully support Israel, and the
AZ Empire is promoting Kurdish ethno-states in Iraq and Syria (though not in Turkey, where
50% of all Kurds live).
We were all ready to accept a referendum that would have seen Scotland secede from Great
Britain, and yet when people in regions of 1991 Ukraine resisted the Western-fomented coup in
2014, and voted to secede, we are told they are terrorists to be crushed.
Most of the national borders in the Middle East and Africa were created by an elite in
Great Britain and Europe, which divided families and crammed together enemies, creating the
inevitable century of turmoil. And yet, here most of us support the sovereignty of some of
those artificially-created neocolonial states.
Messy.
Personally, I believe in the right to self-determination. If a group of people in a region
choose to form, or dissolve, or maintain, or expand a political entity, then they should be
allowed to. Such decisions should be made by the will of those people only.
What I see as illegitimate is people from outside that region interfering to force their
will on others.
MFS also travelled to the Donbass and made a documentary about his journey there. I saw
the documentary a couple of years ago and from memory I believe he met Givi, one of the
Donbass military commanders. Givi died in early 2017 when a missile hit his office. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukQgVoTnAuE
Jen. Thanks for the great links on the Ukraine situation. Oliver Stone created a stunning
documentary, that is the best on the subject I've seen: "Ukraine on Fire"
Unfortunately, it appears to be banned or at lest heavily censored within the US. I saw it
on RT.
I've seen several uploads of this documentary, which was made in 2015. But the resolution
of this version is superb. I recommend it for everyone actually, and I'm happy to say that
it's being hosted on the Vesti News channel - which is worth exploring in its own right.
This is the definitive story told from the inside of the people of Crimea forming a
resistance force to take their land back from Ukraine. It was already happening but the
Korsun massacre detailed above by commenters was the galvanizing point that showed the
Crimeans that Kiev was coming to massacre it also, unless it resisted. And as everyone knew,
Crimea was hated most of all, and its suffering would be far worse than that of Donbass.
Kondrashev is a popular Russian news commentator, and he interviews Putin extensively in
the film. This was made one year after the Crimea restoration to Russia, after the events of
that time, coordinated by Putin, were de-classified.
The documentary is a dramatic and stirring work. You will be totally in love with with
Crimea and the Russian people by the end of it. And you will understand how the Maidan was a
US color revolution in classical style. Your heart will jump when you see the snipers kill
the hard-pressed Berkut. And it's a true story, made from real footage, and with parts
reenacted by the actual people.
When the polite green men show up, in the very nick of time, you may find yourself weeping
with gladness.
I am halfway through watching a film of US actor Peter von Berg travelling through the
Donetsk People's Republic and meeting Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko and various others
to find out how the Donetsk rebels are creating a socialist state under a situation of war. The
film is as much an implicit criticism of US society (and by extension, Western capitalist
society generally) as it is an investigation of the reality on the ground on Donetsk, ignored
by the Western MSM.
Von Berg visits a greenhouse farm growing tomatoes, a hospital and a factory among other
places he travels to (including the capital, of course) in the DPR.
There is even a short history of the city of Donetsk and how it was founded by 19th-century
Welsh engineer industrialist John Hughes, after whom it was originally named Yuzovka.
"... The attributions of attacks to countries are very shaky. Throw in a couple of Cyrillic letters and voilà, you have associated a certain IP address or a certain piece of code with Russia. Somehow these simpleton arguments are uncritically accepted as proofs by computer security professionals the world over, who, of all people, really should know better. It's as if all the supposedly smart cryptographers and programmers are completely oblivious to the concept of manipulation. ..."
Could someone remind me the amount of country's America have invaded since the last world war
30 - 40 , I here'd. Compared to Russia 5-8 ? Russia is in Syria by invitation to deal with
rebels/terrorist's .America is now threatening both. Despite being there to attempt a regime
change. Just who do they think they are ? The sooner they are stopped the better and the
easier.
Russia intervened nowhere; the USSR intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In 1993,
Yeltsin's cabal intervened in Russia to preserve Bush's and Clinton's New World Order. USSR
was invited into Afghanistan; Outlaw US Empire wasn't. An incomplete list from William Blum's
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II . A graphic map based on Blum's
book.
Yesterday, Putin met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Unfortunately, the Kremlin's recap of
the meeting's currently incomplete, but what is recorded is instructive:
"Of course, we look at the Russian Federation as a founder of the United Nations and as a
permanent member of the Security Council, but I would say that at the present moment we look
at the Russian Federation as an indispensable element of the creation of a new multipolar
world.
"To be entirely frank, these are not easy times for multilateralism and not easy times for
the UN. And I think that after the Cold War and after a short period of unipolar world we are
still struggling to find a way to have a structured, multipolar world with multilateral
governmental institutions that can work. And this is something that worries me a lot and is
something in which, I believe, the Russian Federation has a unique role to play."
Considering many think Guterres just an agent for the Outlaw US Empire, maybe his cited
words will cause a reassessment. I'd like to know what followed. Apparently there was some
discussion about Korea and the
economic initiatives being openly discussed since RoK President Moon will arrive in
Russia tomorrow.
Lavrov met with Guterres today, and his
opening remarks shine a bit more light on what was discussed:
"As emphasised by President Putin, we have invariably supported, support, and will
continue to support the UN, this unique universal organisation. We think highly of your
intention, Mr Secretary-General, to raise the profile of the United Nations in world affairs,
particularly in settling regional conflicts. As you noted yourself at the meeting in the
Kremlin yesterday, this is largely dependent on the general state of the international system
as a whole and the UN member states' readiness to act collectively, jointly, rather than
unilaterally, and to pursue the goals enshrined in the UN Charter rather than
self-centred,[sic] immediate aims.
"We note that you have consistently advocated the pooling of efforts by major players to
deal with world problems. This is the logic of the UN Charter, specifically its clauses on
the creation and powers of the UN Security Council. I hope that based on the values we share
we will be able to successfully continue cooperation in the interests of solving
international problems."
Lots of emphasis on the absolute necessity of making the UN Charter whole again and not
allowing any one nation to make a mockery of it by pursuing its "self-centered, immediate
aims."
Ben @ 14
Thanks Ben. Yep that's what l thought reality would look like, that's my sanity safe for a
while longer. Remember we are not alone!
Zanon @ 12
That is a perfect example of 'fake news' we can spot it here ! Or are we here now msm!
Pantaraxia @ 20
Wow that doubles what I was already shocked about ! And then of course there's the comercal
operations destablising country's using greed as a weapon. Plus the banks, I'm sure South
Africa would have been a real success if they'd kept the banking curuption out. Time for
immoral capitalism to fall.
Also don't you just hate victim blaming.There that's me done. Grrr
@b: I know you're just one man and can't do everything, but it would be wonderful if you
could cover the history of hacking accusations against Russia. No one lays out a sequence of
events better than you.
Just yesterday, another accusation has been leveled against Russia by the head of
Germany's BfV intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen:
German intelligence sees Russia behind hack of energy firms - media report (Reuters).
It's a serious accusation, and one would expect a serious proof. However, no proof has been
given except that "it fits the Russian modus operandi". Also, the fact that the alleged
attack has been named "Berserk Bear" by some unknown Western analyst. Apparently, that's
enough proof by today's standards.
There is a critical lack of independent thinking and skepticism in the international
computer security circles nowadays. The attributions of attacks to countries are very
shaky. Throw in a couple of Cyrillic letters and voilà, you have associated a certain
IP address or a certain piece of code with Russia. Somehow these simpleton arguments are
uncritically accepted as proofs by computer security professionals the world over, who, of
all people, really should know better. It's as if all the supposedly smart cryptographers and
programmers are completely oblivious to the concept of manipulation.
If Kiev wants to attack Donbas they better hurry. After World Cup, and definitely next year
when the pipelines bypassing Ukraine will be ready, Ukraine's strategic situation will get
worse. We are in a transition phase: sh..t happened in 2013-15 that is impossible to undo,
but there were fortunately constraints on all sides that prevented a meltdown. In a year or
two most of those constraints will be gone.
Saker is correct that EU countries will not work with Russia. Blaming it all on Washington
was always stupid – there are forces in Europe, in all countries, who want a
confrontation with Russia. Any event, real or fake, will be used to escalate. West cannot
lose this one without another fight. And if they sit on their hands, they will eventually
lose with a disillusioned Ukraine and slowly disintegrating EU. Populist energy needs to be
re-directed eastward, and for that a more aggressive policy is required. This is not
pessimism, there simply is no way for EU elite to climb down. How could UK make up with
Russia without looking like complete idiots? Or Macron and Merkel? The hostility is at this
point inherent in the situation – what started out as a badly thought-out attempt to
get some quick goodies (bases in Crimea, Nato expansion, sell weapons) has evolved into a
real death spiral.
We are one Franz Ferdinand moment away from a catastrophe. Let's enjoy the games while we
still can. Trump knows this, so he is trying desperately to organize a summit or send some
messages of conciliation. But he is powerless and it might be too late for that. Hubris never
dissipates, it requires a disaster and an elite turnover to cure hubris.
Saker is once again completely wrong. His theories fall short to explain lots of real events.
He got hooked on his "Anglo-Zionist" theory and "one Hegemon", which is far from explaining
the reality on the ground. There is no one single hegemon, but two powerful interest groups
in the west. One of the power centers is dominated by the Rothschilds from the City of London
and the other ruled by the Rockerfellers which is based in the US.
The powers described above are sometimes working in collusion but sometimes work against each
other (They were in collusion during the Soviet Afghan war for instance). Currently, we don't
see a collusion but a war being waged in between these two groups. I think it is highly self
evident, so much so that it is happening almost all in the open. In the modern history we
haven't witnessed such a openly fought war ever before (between these two powers). All is at
stake and the war in between these two is vicious. Thus you can explain Trump's attitude
towards EU, everlasting character assasination of Trump by certain opposing circles in the
US, high level resignations, the state of confusion of Nato and much more. If this theory is
right (and I think it is much more viable than any other theory that I came across in the
Alt-Med), this makes Russia firmly embedded into one of the camps. Unfortunately, the
position that Russia took makes him not a sovereign power but on contrary puts him into a
subservient role. The late actions of Russia, especially in Syria, is quite telling. I know
people who admire Russia get quite frustrated when they hear such a scenario and outcome, but
this is possibly the only way Putin believes that Russia can survive. Thus it explains his
latest house clean-up of Euroasian integrists. Even worse, if you believe in this scenario,
it brings Russia and China against each other especially in the long run. This scenario also
put a full stop to the idealist Euroasian multi-polar world order.
Here is the link to an older video in Russian with English subtitles. The guy's name is
Andrei Fursov and he has some interesting things to say regarding this subject. This
interview was just before Obama was elected but is still quite relevent. His newer videos
seems to have lost steam, possibly because he is working for some state connected Russian
institutions and think-thanks and thus I think he is somewhat restricted. After all it is
again the famous "Game Theory", isn't it?
I don't think you realize that armies need supplies. To break into Donbas cities would be
hard enough, but to re-supply them would be impossible. Civilians would mostly evacuate, so
there would be little to 'hide in'. Kiev cannot win militarily as long as Russia opposes it.
Russia can always blast their bases from air, or with missiles. Don't kid yourself, if Russia
has the will, they will prevail.
Since you mentioned 2014, there was a perfect opportunity for Maidanistas to avoid this.
All they had to do was to be friendly and accommodating to its Russian minority. Offer them
autonomy, re-assure them, promise that trade and ties with Russia would continue. Kiev did
the exact opposite, an extremely bad tactic. US kept on telling them to cool it, that one
doesn't win by attacking before ready. But in Kiev emotions prevailed, and so we are where we
are.
Sooner or later a more accommodating government in Kiev will try the 'let bygones be
bygones' tactic on Russia. If we are lucky enough to make it that far.
So-called Ukrainian 'maidans' have bored the world community to death. And the public has
been taking the protests currently under way in Kiev for no more than traditional autumn and
winter open-air parties, similar to the Parisian 'fire shows'. Meanwhile, much more significant
confrontation has been taking place in Kiev, alongside with the circus of ex-president of
Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili. An inner conflict between two anticorruption and power-wielding
departments of the country is long overdue. In their relations with the media, both
representatives of those organizations and members of various Verkhovna Rada fractions have
been describing specific processes that are taking place in Ukraine as 'Makhnovshchina' or a
war of all against all, literally speaking.
After returning from the international anti-corruption forum organized by the U.S. State
Department, Nazar Holodnitsky, head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office
(SAP) of Ukraine, stated in an interview
to TSN , the Ukrainian TV channel, that a standoff of law enforcement agencies may escalate
into a war harmful to entire Ukraine. Thus, a conflict between the National Anti-Corruption
Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has evolved into a hybrid
war with interrogations involving physical and mental pressure and mutual accusations of all
sorts of evils. Delegates of both sides have simultaneously visited their U.S. sponsors and
come back comforted with just another assurance of '1000% support'.
Such confrontation of the government institutions raises eyebrows, I must say. State
Department has publicly been sympathized with both the corruption fighters and the General
Prosecutor's Office upon condition of the settlement of conflict by legal means and punishment
of officials guilty of criminal charges. Meanwhile, the FBI has also been drawn in this
undeclared war. In June 2016, the FBI and NABU adopted the Memorandum of Understanding, which
allows the FBI to assist NABU and SAP in the matter of investigations and implementation of
anti-corruption actions. The Bureau's special agents and analysts have been working in NABU on
a temporary rotational basis.
The mere presence of the FBI suggests an idea about another U.S. security service which has
been standing invisibly by in Ukraine, since it gained independence. This is the CIA, a classic
rival of the FBI. The very secret visit in 2014 of the former Central Intelligence Agency chief
John
O. Brennan preceded the beginning of active hostilities in Ukraine. The CIA stood behind
the appointment of the recent Kiev government. It had also protected the acting president of
the country from rivals, up to a certain time. For instance, they conduced to the resignation
of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former rather ambitious Prime Minister of Ukraine who was in conflict
with Petro Poroshenko and running for his post.
That helps explain the real cause of furious intransigence of NABU and the General
Prosecutor's Office throwing wild accusations at each other. They have virtually been used by
power-wielding structures and political forces of another state for a showdown. A never-ending
internal fighting in the American national security environment has become the talk of the town
being eventually accreted with new dirty wash. It seems that it has become more acute, with the
passing of time.
For example, the FBI dealt a hard blow to the CIA bringing 12-count charges including
conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, false statements, and other
against Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign chairman and his business associate,
Richard Gates. His other partner, Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager was involved as well.
Manafort was renowned for his associations with the CIA and for consulting the Party of Regions
which was led by Victor Yanukovych. It became clear who was he FBI's source of such detailed
and valuable data after the statements by
Artem Sytnyk , Director of NABU and Serhiy Leshchenko , a Ukrainian
MP.
Nevertheless, the CIA won at this stage of confrontation, because Trump came to power. Even
support to the current President of the USA prior to the elections wasn't of much assistance to
the FBI Director Comey.
History has witnessed a number of episodes when Ukraine was a stage for showdown by
political forces from other countries. It never ended peacefully. As far back as in the XVII
century Ukrainian territory had become a theatre of operations owing to the bloody strife
between Polish hetmans (high military commanders in the Army of the Kingdom of Poland) of
Ukrainian and Cossack origin. As a result, lands of the Zaporizhian Host voluntarily pledged
allegiance to Russia.
During World War II the Ukrainian people suffered much harder. At that time the Third Reich
was intensely seeking for ways to weaken the USSR, even before it invaded Poland in 1939. It
was decided to use the ancient divide-and rule tactics proven by Julius Caesar, involving
gradual tearing away of territories with malcontent population. Ukraine was considered the most
prospective area for fomenting disaffection.
However, there also was both ideological and political discord among the highest ranks of
the Third Reich. Thus, Alfred Rosenberg, the main ideologue of Nazism, along with admiral
Wilhelm Canaris (who was accused of 'spiritual instigation' of a plot against Hitler) were
planning the establishment of Ukrainian buffer state controlled by the Third Reich. Using such
promises they managed to recruit Andriy Melnyk, a central figure in the Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and notorious Stepan Bandera who, just like Mr. Yatsenyuk, was
striving to lead the government in independent Ukrainian state. If the second one kept clinging
to his aims all the time, Melnyk was good at matching to desires of his sponsors from Hitler's
surrounding. When Himmler and Koch didn't recognize Rosenberg's ideas and wanted to weaken his
power in the National Socialist Worker's Party, Melnyk was quick to assure them of his
willingness to cooperate on any terms, especially when they let him know that Fuhrer didn't
like the idea of a Ukrainian buffer state.
It is a paradox that those relations that had developed both within various branches of
OUN-UPA and the Third Reich senior ranks coordinating them were similar to the recent situation
in Ukraine. Ukrainian nationalist leaders were used not only for German purposes, but also for
elimination of competitors in power. For instance, Rosenberg, after all, had to abandon his
point of view. Many of his influential followers resigned just like chief Comey did to the
delight of chief Pompeo, this May. Although NABU, the organization most thoroughly maintaining
a steady U.S. course prepared for Ukraine, has been successfully continuing investigations,
digging into Poroshenko who fell into disfavor for his poor record. And here you are, Marie
Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a close acquaintance of the U.S. president's
national security advisor McMaster and Secretary of Defense Mattis has
indirectly supported Saakashvili's demonstration. In September, Saakashvili hanged out
happily with contenders of the recent president in future election Valentyn Nalyvaichenko and
Andriy Sadoviy, in Lviv. Now a big friend of Senator McCain Yulia Timoshenko and a number of
Verkhovna Rada MPs endorse him.
This mess of warring parties seems to be disordered and extremely headachy. The situation
has been much worse for the number of competing forces and foreign organizations standing
behind them in Ukraine was much greater during the Third Reich and it continues to be so at
present. The recent Ukrainian bellum omnium contra omnes has been a reflection of competitive
battle between various security and governmental agencies in the USA.
A single distinct and unequivocal fact is that being a neighbour of such a huge state as
Russia, Ukraine was always suffering from those who wish to weaken that influential country.
Over and over again throughout Ukrainian history the country was exploited, with nationalist
sentiments artificially ignited and false promises made. Even 'humane' Rosenberg's scheme
ascribed Ukraine the role of a mere supplier of raw materials and a buffer state between
Germany and Eastern Slavic countries without any right to independence.
As such, the USA regards Ukraine as an administered territory which is useful for strategic
and economic aims. They skillfully manipulate Kiev government with carrot and stick.
Undesirable Ukrainian political puppet might be branded as corrupt and replaced by more
manageable nominee, at any time. There is always a possibility to initiate another blood
shedding Maidan with oppressions and civil war, in case of urgency. Today's Ukraine is no freer
than it was in 1941, during the invasion of Nazi Germany. Melnyks, banderas, hetmans
skoropadskies have been replaced by new 'heroes', who never changed their essence. For
evanescent promises and artificially inflated ambitions they've been tearing the country apart
without mercy either to each other, or their countrymen. Meanwhile, the world community has
been watching with approval the beacon of democracy vigorously setting things to order in 'dark
and ignorant' Ukraine. Each of them thinking, 'Better them than me.'
An interesting point about refugees and emigration of Ukrainians to Russia.
Notable quotes:
"... Donbass is a civil conflict involving some Russian support for the rebels, who're overwhelmingly from the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR. These individuals have a realistic basis to oppose the Kiev based regimes that came after the overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian president. ..."
"... During the American Revolution, most of the pro-British fighters were said to be colonists already based in America. Furthermore, the American revolutionaries received significant support from France. With these factors in mind, the Donbass rebels don't seem less legit than the American revolutionaries. ..."
"... Some Kiev regime elements positively reference the 1995 Croat ethnic cleansing of Krajina Serbs (known as Operation Storm) as a solution for ending the rebel position in Donbass. Russia doesn't seek a massive refugee problem in Donbass and some other parts of the former Ukrainian SSR. As is, a sizeable number of Ukrainian residents have fled to Russia. ..."
"... Putin isn't anti-US in the manner claimed by Peters. Moreover, Peters is clearly more anti-Russian (in a narrow minded way at that) than what can be reasonably said of how Putin views the US. Putin's obvious differences with neocons, neolibs and flat out Russia haters isn't by default anti-US. He was the first foreign leader to console the US following 9/11. The Russian president has been consistently on record for favoring better US-Russian ties (even inquiring about Russia joining NATO at one point), thereby explaining why he has appeared to have preferred Trump over Clinton. ..."
"... the Russians (by and large) prefer predictability. As a general rule this is otherwise true. However, Clinton's neocon/neolib stated views on Russia have been to the point where many Russians felt willing to take a chance with Trump, whose campaign included a comparatively more sympathetic take of their country. At the same time, a good number of Russians questioned whether Trump would maintain that stance. ..."
Last week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, received well deserved praise for taking to
task the permeating anti-Russian biases. The highlight of Carlson's exchanges was his
encounter with Ralph Peters, who for years has spouted grossly inaccurate propaganda
against Russia. Antiwar.com and Russia Insider, are among the counter-establishment English
language venues commenting on the Carlson-Peters discussion. The US foreign policy
establishment realist leaning National Interest carried a lengthy piece on Carlson's
challenge to the neocon/neolib foreign policy perceptions. For the record, more can and
should be said in reply to Peter's comments.
Peters falsely claims that Russia hasn't made a concerted effort in confronting ISIS. In
one of his more accurate moments, CNN's Wolf Blitzer said that the ISIS claimed shoot down
of a Russian civilian airliner over Egypt, was in response to Russia's war against ISIS.
You've to be either a liar or clueless to not recognize why Russia has actively opposed
ISIS. The latter sees Russia as an enemy, while having a good number of individuals with
roots in Russia and some other parts of the former USSR.
Peters' characterization of Russia targeting civilian areas is disingenuous. Over the
years, the matter of collateral damage is something periodically brought up in response to
those killed by US and Israeli military actions.
Peters offers no proof to his suspect claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin kills
journalists. There're numerous anti-Putin advocates alive and well in Russia. That country
does have a violence problem. Recall what the US was like in the 1960s thru early
1970′s. For that matter, Bernie Sanders isn't blamed for the pro-Sanders person who
attempted to kill Republican lawmakers.
Given the situations concerning Kosovo and northern Cyprus, Peters is being a flat out
hypocrite regarding Crimea. Donbass is a civil conflict involving some Russian support for
the rebels, who're overwhelmingly from the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR. These
individuals have a realistic basis to oppose the Kiev based regimes that came after the
overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian president.
During the American Revolution, most of the pro-British fighters were said to be
colonists already based in America. Furthermore, the American revolutionaries received
significant support from France. With these factors in mind, the Donbass rebels don't seem
less legit than the American revolutionaries.
Some Kiev regime elements positively reference the 1995 Croat ethnic cleansing of
Krajina Serbs (known as Operation Storm) as a solution for ending the rebel position in
Donbass. Russia doesn't seek a massive refugee problem in Donbass and some other parts of
the former Ukrainian SSR. As is, a sizeable number of Ukrainian residents have fled to
Russia.
Putin isn't anti-US in the manner claimed by Peters. Moreover, Peters is clearly more
anti-Russian (in a narrow minded way at that) than what can be reasonably said of how Putin
views the US. Putin's obvious differences with neocons, neolibs and flat out Russia haters
isn't by default anti-US. He was the first foreign leader to console the US following 9/11.
The Russian president has been consistently on record for favoring better US-Russian ties
(even inquiring about Russia joining NATO at one point), thereby explaining why he has
appeared to have preferred Trump over Clinton.
Some (including Trump) disagree with that view, which includes the notion that the
Russians (by and large) prefer predictability. As a general rule this is otherwise true.
However, Clinton's neocon/neolib stated views on Russia have been to the point where many
Russians felt willing to take a chance with Trump, whose campaign included a comparatively
more sympathetic take of their country. At the same time, a good number of Russians
questioned whether Trump would maintain that stance.
I suppose many of us saw the Tucker with Max Boot. Boot seemed unhinged, really
emotionally overwrought by Tucker raising commonsensical challenges to his neocon orthodoxy.
Sad, angry man.
The root is neoliberal government that came to power in 2015
Notable quotes:
"... Why is any of this still "surprising" ..."
"... Economist Ha Joon Chang popularized the term "ladder kicking" to describe the way in which most developed countries used tariffs and trade restrictions to ascent to the top but are all for "free trade" now. ..."
"... Once again, so long as "Original Sin" is a reality, there is little hope. Keynes' BANCOR was the idea to begin to fix this, but short of some other global currency initiative, we're left to the International Finance Vultures as the primary arbiters of what's possible. ..."
Thanks for the link. I will be spending some time thinking of what Argentina would best
employ as best practices from where it is.
Would they be best off if they stopped issuing such high paying bonds? Should they pay them
all off and stop with it. It does appear to me that issuing bond after bond is one of the
single most dangerous things you can do.
It would appear to me to be a superior practice to sell what you produce for the best price
you can get on the open markets and dictate the value of your currency.
I'll have to do some more study here.
Again, thanks for the link.
You're uttering the discourse of the most recalcitrant neo-liberal cum
austerity-fundamentalists around.
The US doesn't tax soybean exports. Argentina needs to maximize its exports to earn
foreign exchange.'
it's misleading to say the least to draw a comparison between how the US handles soybean
exports and Argentina does it. They're around a quarter of the latter's exports, barely a
hundredth of the latter's.
The US will never have forex issues, Argentina does have them, and they are very serious.
You make it as if simply exporting commodities will fill the country's economy with USD,
while in truth those dollars will be neatly parked in tax heavens. Eliminating tax and
controls over Argentina's biggest exports -agricultural commodities- is in practice as if
these commodities were produced not in this country but in some foreign territory over which
only the very few who hold most of the land are sovereign. Which is what the current
administration has been doing for the past two years.
You also make it as if the current situation where the value of the peso is given over
completely to whatever short-term speculators feel like doing with it whenever LEBACs are due
is more desirable than the capital controls imposed by the previous government. These
prevented the hurtful rapid rise we're seeing in the exchange rate and reduced the negative
consequences of the fiscal deficit thus allowing significant investment in and expansion of
the real economy.
Addressing the fiscal deficit through increased value added and income tax is something
that clearly benefits the owner over the working class and depresses private consumption. I
can only sarcastically wonder who would want such a thing.
I don't feel the need or the duty to defend the previous government, but victimization of
the Sociedad Rural is something I just lack the words to condemn strongly enough
Argentina is probably the most self sufficient country on earth. It has everything,
fertile land that produces an abundance of wheat, barley, oats, rye, wine grapes. As well as
oil, gas. uranium, silver, gold, lead, copper, zinc. Foreigners are well aware of the wealth
in Argentina and are more than willing to lend to Argentinian governments and companies. This
is why Cristina Kirchner refused to give in to the US vulture funds as it dissuaded
foreigners from believing that reckless lending would always be rewarded. Macri ponied up,
restarting the old familiar economic doom cycle. As always its the old dog for the long road
and the pup for the puddle. Macri is now in a place that he chose, the puddle. As long as
foreig lenders remain reckless Argentina will remain mired in the mud, well short of its
potential. I was last there in 2008 when the country was booming. When I heard of Macri's
plan to pay the vulture funds I knew they were headed for disaster. This is just the
beginning.
Those "foreign lenders" can't be called "reckless." Some, maybe most among them always
seem to profit from the looting, whether by "bailouts" or "backstops" from governments like
the US that for "geopolitical reasons" facilitate that lending, or by extortion after the
first-round lenders (who know the risks, of course -- they are big boys and girls after all)
have been forestalled.
Call them "wreckers," maybe. Like early denizens of the Florida Keys, and other places,
who set fires or put up lamps that resembled lighthouses to lure passing ships onto the sands
and rocks where their cargoes and the valuables of their drowned passengers and crews could
be stripped.
Why is any of this still "surprising" to anyone?! Most countries in the world
(non G7/G8) are forced to go into foreign debt in order to pursue their "development"
initiatives. They are told they can export themselves out of trouble but the "free
trade" (more like unfair trade!) mantra puts them at a distinct disadvantage –
"unequal
exchange" was the term Marx used for it.
Economist Ha Joon Chang popularized the term
"ladder kicking" to describe the way in which most developed countries used tariffs and
trade restrictions to ascent to the top but are all for "free trade" now.
Once again, so long as "Original Sin" is a reality, there is little
hope. Keynes' BANCOR was
the idea to begin to fix this, but short of some other global currency initiative, we're left
to the International Finance Vultures as the primary arbiters of what's possible.
The fact that 99.9% of neocons are chickenhawks and never experienced the level of sufferings
the wat inflicts on people is defining chanracteristic of all US neocons. Especially female
neocon -- a unique US breed.
Notable quotes:
"... At the core of the American philosophy is voluntarism, the justification of action based purely and simply on the will. ..."
"... The clearest and perhaps the best expression of American voluntarism come of age was expressed by Karl Rove during the George W. Bush administration, as reported by Ron Suskind in New York Times Magazine ..."
"... We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. ..."
"... The point of the voluntarist order is to act, to impose one's will on global reality by any means necessary. The truth is not something to be understood, or grasped, still less something that should condition one's own actions and limit them in any way. Truth is reducible to whatever is useful for imposing one's will. ..."
"... For America's voluntarist order, whether these events as described are true in the objective sense is of no more importance than whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You will recall that, just prior to the Iraq invasion, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah some 83 times in order to oblige him to confess a nonexistent connection between Saddam's Iraq, al-Qaeda, and chemical weaponry. That is voluntarism in action right there. "We're an empire now and we create our own reality." It was not a one-off. It is now the norm to make sure the facts are fixed to match the desired policy. ..."
"... Voluntarism is the fruit of an anti-civilization, and of a technological way of knowing, as the great Canadian philosopher George Grant put it, that bears a striking resemblance to what C.S. Lewis described in his pre- Nineteen Eighty-Four ..."
At the core of the American philosophy is voluntarism, the justification of action based
purely and simply on the will. The distinguishing characteristic of voluntarism is that it
gives pride of place to the will as such, to the will as power, the will abstracted from
everything else, but especially abstracted from the good. The notion of the good is necessarily
inclusive of the whole, of all sides. Concern exclusively for oneself goes by a different
name.
The clearest and perhaps the best expression of American voluntarism come of age was
expressed by Karl Rove during the George W. Bush administration, as reported by Ron Suskind in
New York Times Magazine on October 17, 2004:
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities,
which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you,
all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
This oft-quoted statement is naively assumed to have been the expression of a single moment
in American politics, rather than a summation of its ethos by one of its shrewder and more
self-aware practitioners. The point of the voluntarist order is to act, to impose one's will on
global reality by any means necessary. The truth is not something to be understood, or grasped,
still less something that should condition one's own actions and limit them in any way. Truth
is reducible to whatever is useful for imposing one's will.
We can see this voluntarism at work among our forebears. The Skripal affair in Britain led
to almost immediate action -- the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats from the United States
alone -- well before the facts of this dubious incident, which has led to zero deaths, could be
established. Indeed, when the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, suggested first
establishing what had happened and only then acting, he was widely accused of weakness. When
one is "history's actor," action mustn't be delayed. That, after all, is the whole point.
The suffering of innocents should always concern us. But in Syria, the facts regarding who
is the guilty party, including in this latest case of a gas attack in Douma, are very far from
having been established. What's more, though reputable investigators such as Hans Blix and
MIT's Theodore Postol have cast serious
doubt on the reliability of the evidence linking such attacks to Assad's government,
official accounts in the U.S. proceed as if there is not the slightest controversy about the
matter.
For America's voluntarist order, whether these events as described are true in the objective
sense is of no more importance than whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You
will recall that, just prior to the Iraq invasion, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah some 83
times in order to oblige him to
confess a nonexistent connection between Saddam's Iraq, al-Qaeda, and chemical weaponry.
That is voluntarism in action right there. "We're an empire now and we create our own reality."
It was not a one-off. It is now the norm to make sure the facts are fixed
to match the desired policy.
Voluntarism is the fruit of an anti-civilization, and of a technological way of knowing, as
the great Canadian philosopher George Grant put it, that bears a striking resemblance to what
C.S. Lewis described in his pre- Nineteen Eighty-Four anti-utopia That Hideous
Strength . In that novel, the institution called N.I.C.E., like the U.S. foreign policy
establishment today, is essentially a voluntarist bureaucracy run by men without culture,
trained in technical sciences and sociology-like "disciplines" and "law" understood in a purely
formalistic sense, who assume human affairs are understandable as aggregates of facts without
value. Such "men without chests" (Lewis's phrase) live in a world where the good and the true
have forever been severed of their mutually defining link. The resulting, essentially
irrational world they inhabit is one that has only one logic left: that of will and power.
It is an American empire where we create our own reality, the mirror image of ourselves, and
it is indeed precisely hideous. If the builders of empire continue to get their way, it may all
soon enough come to a violent and ignominious end. Historians, if they still exist, will marvel
at our folly.
Paul Grenier, an essayist and translator who writes regularly on
political-philosophical issues, is founder of the Simone Weil Center for Political
Philosophy.
For another outstanding account of 'a technological way of knowing', check out Jacques
Ellul's 'The Technological Society'.
Not only was this incident fabricated, it was known the preparations were known in
advance. I remember reading an article two weeks before Douma about the preparations for the
fabrication. Felix Somary was quite right in writing in July 1914 that "the information
available to insiders, and precisely the most highly placed among them, is all to often
misleading" (quoted in Jim Rickards "The Road to Ruin").
Volunteerism, voluntarism, the mysterious workings of the "will," we're famous for all of it,
but this is not so uniquely American, Rove's comment reminds me of something that Tolstoy
might put in Napoleon's mouth, actually. Pride, plus the tunnel-vision typical of
technocrats, academics, specialists
Karl Rove is a man without a chest–a "chickenhawk," a proud and willful man puffed
up on ignorance and willpower, wrecking the world–and nothing more than that, unless he
wills it to be.
Volunteerism is two things, Power to the Ladies Who Lunch, and we don't have to pay for a
social safety net because somebody else will provide it voluntarily for free.
It has no larger meaning, and no role in foreign policy.
The foreign policy described here is just Smedley Butler's "racket" using US foreign
policy and forces for private ends.
I've just stumbled on this absolute gem, from the New York Times, 17/1/2003:
"Analysis of thousands of captured Iraqi secret police documents and declassified U.S.
government documents, as well as interviews with scores of Kurdish survivors, senior Iraqi
defectors and retired U.S. intelligence officers, show
(1) that Iraq carried out the attack on Halabja [a 1988 chemical attack on Kurdish
villages that killed 5000 civilians], and
(2) that the United States, fully aware it was Iraq, accused Iran, Iraq's enemy in a
fierce war, of being partly responsible for the attack. The State Department instructed its
diplomats to say that Iran was partly to blame."
Ukraine is a debilitated state, created under Soviet auspices, hampered by a difficult
Soviet inheritance, and hollowed out by its own predatory elites during two decades of misrule.
But it is also a nation that is too big and independent for Russia to swallow up. Russia,
meanwhile, is a damaged yet still formidable great power whose rulers cannot be intimidated
into allowing Ukraine to enter the Western orbit. Hence the standoff. No external power or aid
package can solve Ukraine's problems or compensate for its inherent vulnerabilities
vis-à-vis Russia. Nor would sending lethal weaponry to Ukraine's brave but ragtag
volunteer fighters and corrupt state structures improve the situation; in fact, it would send
it spiraling further downward, by failing to balance Russian predominance while giving Moscow a
pretext to escalate the conflict even more. Rather, the way forward must begin with a
recognition of some banal facts and some difficult bargaining.
Russia's seizure of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine do not challenge the entire
post-1945 international order. The forward positions the Soviet Union occupied in the heart of
Europe as a result of defeating Nazi Germany were voluntarily relinquished in the early 1990s,
and they are not going to be reoccupied. But nor should every detail of the post–Cold War
settlement worked out in 1989–91 be considered eternal and inviolate. That settlement
emerged during an anomalous time. Russia was flat on its back but would not remain prostrate
forever, and when it recovered, some sort of pushback was to be expected.
Something similar happened following the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, many of the
provisions of which were not enforced. Even if France, the United Kingdom, and the United
States had been willing and able to enforce the peace, their efforts would not have worked,
because the treaty had been imposed during a temporary anomaly, the simultaneous collapse of
German and Russian power, and would inevitably have been challenged when that power
returned.
Territorial revisionism ensued after World War II as well, of course, and continued
sporadically for decades. Since 1991, there have been some negotiated revisions: Hong Kong and
Macao underwent peaceful reabsorption into China. Yugoslavia was broken up in violence and war,
leading to the independence of its six federal units and eventually Kosovo, as well.
Unrecognized statelets such as Nagorno-Karabakh, part of Azerbaijan; Transnistria, a sliver of
Moldova; Abkhazia and South Ossetia, disputed units of Georgia; and now Donetsk and Luhansk,
parts of Ukraine -- each entails a story of Stalinist border-making.
The European Union cannot resolve this latest standoff, nor can the United Nations. The
United States has indeed put together "coalitions of the willing" to legitimize some of its
recent interventions, but it is not going to go to war over Ukraine or start bombing Russia,
and the wherewithal and will for indefinite sanctions against Russia are lacking. Distasteful
as it might sound, Washington faces the prospect of trying to work out some negotiated larger
territorial settlement.
Such negotiations would have to acknowledge that Russia is a great power with leverage, but
they would not need to involve the formal acceptance of some special Russian sphere of interest
in its so-called near abroad. The chief goals would be, first, to exchange international
recognition of Russia's annexation of Crimea for an end to all the frozen conflicts in which
Russia is an accomplice and, second, to disincentivize such behavior in the future. Russia
should have to pay monetary compensation for Crimea. There could be some federal solutions,
referendums, even land swaps and population transfers (which in many cases have already taken
place). Sanctions on Russia would remain in place until a settlement was mutually agreed on,
and new sanctions could be levied if Russia were to reject negotiations or were deemed to be
conducting them in bad faith. Recognition of the new status of Crimea would occur in stages,
over an extended period.
It would be a huge challenge to devise incentives that were politically plausible in the
West while at the same time powerful enough for Russia to agree to a just settlement -- and for
Ukraine to be willing to take part. But the search for a settlement would be an opportunity as
well as a headache.
NATO expansion can be judged to have been a strategic error -- not because it angered Russia
but because it weakened NATO as a military alliance. Russia's elites would likely have become
revanchist even without NATO's advance, because they believe, nearly universally, that the
United States took advantage of Russia in 1991 and has denied the country its rightful place as
an equal in international diplomacy ever since. But NATO expansion's critics have not offered
much in the way of practicable alternatives. Would it really have been appropriate, for
example, to deny the requests of all the countries east of Germany to join the alliance?
Then as now, the only real alternative was the creation of an entirely new trans-European
security architecture, one that fully transcended its Cold War counterpart. This was an
oft-expressed Russian wish, but in the early 1990s, there was neither the imagination nor the
incentives in Washington for such a heavy lift. Whether there is such capacity in Washington
today remains to be seen. But even if comprehensive new security arrangements are unlikely
anytime soon, Washington could still undertake much useful groundwork.
Critics might object on the grounds that the sanctions are actually biting, reinforced by
the oil price free fall -- so why offer even minimal concessions to Putin now? The answer is
because neither the sanctions, nor the oil price collapse, nor the two in conjunction have
altered Russia's behavior, diminished its potential as a spoiler, or afforded Ukraine a chance
to recover.
Whether they acknowledge it or not, Western opponents of a negotiated settlement are really
opting for another long-term, open-ended attempt to contain Russia and hope for regime change
-- a policy likely to last until the end of Putin's life and possibly well beyond. The costs of
such an approach are likely to be quite high, and other global issues will continue to demand
attention and resources. And all the while, Ukraine would effectively remain crippled, Europe's
economy would suffer, and Russia would grow ever more embittered and difficult to handle. All
of that might occur no matter what. But if negotiations hold out a chance of somehow averting
such an outcome, they are worth a try. And the attempt would hold few costs, because failed
negotiations would only solidify the case for containment in Europe and in the United
States.
It is ultimately up to Russia's leaders to take meaningful steps to integrate their country
into the existing world order, one that they can vex but not fully overturn. To the extent that
the Ukraine debacle has brought this reality into sharper focus, it might actually have been
useful in helping Putin to see some light, and the same goes for the collapse of oil prices and
the accompanying unavoidable devaluation of the ruble. After the nadir of 1998, smart policy
choices in Moscow, together with some lucky outside breaks, helped Russia transform a crisis
into a breakthrough, with real and impressive steps forward. That history could replay itself
-- but whether it will remains the prerogative of one person alone.
To
borrow from the British definition of an ambassador, United States military leaders are honest soldiers promoted in rank to champion
war with reckless disregard for the truth. This practice persists despite the catastrophic waste of lives and money because the untruths
are never punished. Congress needs to correct this problem forthwith.
General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, exemplifies the phenomenon. As reported in The Washington
Post , Dunford recently voiced optimism about defeating the Afghan Taliban in the seventeenth year of a trillion-dollar war that
has multiplied safe havens for international terrorists, the opposite of the war's original mission. While not under oath, Dunford
insisted, "This is not another year of the same thing we've been doing for 17 years. This is a fundamentally different approach [T]he
right people at the right level with the right training [are in place] "
There, the general recklessly disregarded the truth. He followed the instruction of General William Westmoreland who stated at
the National Press Club on November 21, 1967 that the Vietnam War had come to a point "where the end begins to come into view." The
1968 Tet Offensive was then around the corner, which would provoke Westmoreland to ask for 200,000 more American troops. The Pentagon
Papers and Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster's Dereliction of Duty have meticulously documented the military's reckless disregard
for the truth throughout the Vietnam War.
Any fool can understand that continuing our 17-year-old war in Afghanistan is a fool's errand. The nation is artificial. Among
other things, its disputed border with Pakistan, the Durand Line, was drawn in 1896 between the British Raj and Afghan Amir Abdur
Rahmen Khair. Afghanistan's population splinters along tribal, ethnic, and sectarian lines, including Pushtans, Uzbeks, Hazara, Tajiks,
Turkmen, and Balochi. Its government is riddled with nepotism, corruption, ineptitude, and lawlessness. Election fraud and political
sclerosis are endemic. Opium production and trafficking replenish the Taliban's coffers.
The Afghan National Army (ANA) is a paper tiger. Desertion and attrition rates are alarming. Disloyalty is widespread. American
weapons are sold to the Taliban or captured. ANA soldiers will not risk that last full measure of devotion for an illegitimate, unrepresentative,
decrepit government.
The Taliban also has a safe haven in Pakistan. A staggering portion -- maybe up to 90 percent -- of United States assistance to
Afghanistan is embezzled, diverted, or wasted. John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR),
related to Chatham House in London that "SIGAR was finding waste, fraud, and abuse nearly everywhere we looked in Afghanistan --
from the $488 million worth of aircraft that couldn't fly, to the navy the U.S. bought for a landlocked country, to the buildings
the U.S. paid for that literally melted in the rain ."
"The Taliban are getting stronger, the government is on the retreat, they are losing ground to the Taliban day by day," Abdul
Jabbar Qahraman, a retired Afghan general who was the Afghan government's military envoy to Helmand Province until 2016, told the
New York Times last summer. ISIS has now joined the Taliban and al-Qaeda in fighting the United States. Secretary of Defense
General James Mattis conceded to Congress last June that "we are not winning in Afghanistan right now," but added polyannaishly,
"And we will correct this as soon as possible." Only two months earlier, the Defense Department insisted that dropping the Mother
of All Bombs on Afghanistan would reverse the losing trend.
Upton Sinclair sermonized: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding
it." Thus do military leaders deceive themselves about futile wars to extract more spending, to maintain their professional reputations
and public stature, and to avoid the embarrassment of explaining to Congress and the American people that astronomical sums have
been wasted and tens of thousands of American soldiers have died or were crippled in vain.
To deter such self-deception, Congress should enact a statute requiring the retirement without pension of any general or admiral
who materially misleads legislators or the public about prospective or ongoing wars with reckless disregard for the truth. That sanction
might have prompted General Dunford to acknowledge the grim truth about Afghanistan: that the United States is clueless about how
to win that war.
Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and is the founding partner of Fein & DelValle PLLC.
This is definitely cancer stage of neoliberalism, but I doubt that there is connection
between Skripal poisoning and Ukraine.
Also why the USA served as the catalyst for coming nationalists to power in 2014 the process
started long ago with Yushchenko and to a certain extent is typical for all post Soviet
republics, including Kazakhstan and Belorussia. they all try to distance themselves from Russia
to prove their sovereignty. The low intensity warfare in Donetsk is the only differentiator, but
even this remind attempt of Georgia to subdue South Ossetia in the past and Karabah conflict
between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Still the author is definitely a brilliant writer and thinker he describes geopolitical
tensions really well
Notable quotes:
"... has to have such a war-drum distraction to survive. ..."
"... Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee of the UN General Assembly ..."
As usual there is amnesia of the ever-recurring big-lie pretext, the need for another crisis
to keep the two-billion-dollar a day NATO war machine going, the baleful puppet moves of Canada
in the process, the crisis of legitimacy of the lead attacker's government, and the silent
diversion from the whole nightmare scenario unfolding by all NATO-member governments, mass
media and even 'peace activist' organisations.
This time the big-lie pretext is about the alleged poisoning by the Kremlin/Putin of a
double-agent, usually a stock move in the espionage entertainments, but here with no evidence
of the claimed origin of the lethal nerve-agent, but rather expert denial within British
defence and weapons research itself, with devious political word games to get around the
absence of any corroborated evidence in familiar denuciations of Russia full of aggression and
hate. Not even a death is recorded while US-led nd UK-armed ally forces are still
mass-murdering poor civilian Yeminis, drone-murdering endless targets and civilians abroad,
continuing on unblamed for the ongoing NATO-executed eco-genocides of Iraq and Libya societies,
and on the 19-years anniversary of the mass bombing of, once again a society, Yugoslavia, with
the most evolved social infrastructures of health, education, housing and life security in the
region.
What this latest war pretext for US and NATO-backed aggression is really about is justifying
more war in the Ukraine now that the massive war preparations along all of Russia's
Western borders following the self-declared Nazi-led and proven US- orchestrated and commanded
mass-murder coup d'etat in February 2014 . As usual there is amnesia of the ever-recurring
big-lie pretext, the need for another crisis to keep the two-billion-dollar a day NATO war
machine going, the baleful puppet moves of Canada in the process, the crisis of legitimacy of
the lead attacker's government, and the silent diversion from the whole nightmare scenario
unfolding by all NATO-member governments, mass media and even 'peace activist'
organisations.
This time the big-lie pretext is about the alleged poisoning by the Kremlin/Putin of a
double-agent traitor, usually a stock move in the espionage entertainments. Yet here there is
no confirmed evidence whatever of the claimed origin of the lethal nerve-agent, but rather
expert denial within British defence and weapons research itself that is silence in the press,
with devious political word games crafted to get around the absence of any corroborated facts
in the familiar denuciations of Russia full of team aggression and hate. Not even a death is
recorded while US-led nd UK-armed ally forces are still mass-murdering poor civilian Yeminis,
drone-murdering endless targets and civilians abroad, continuing on unblamed for the ongoing
NATO-executed eco-genocides of Iraq and Libya societies, and on the 19-years anniversary of the
mass bombing of Yugoslavia -- once again a socialist society with the most evolved social
infrastructures of health, education, housing and life security in the region.
What this latest war pretext for US and NATO-backed aggression is really about is justifying
more war in Ukraine now that the massive war preparations along all of Russia's Western borders
following the self-declared Nazi-led and proven US- orchestrated and commanded mass-murder coup
d'etat in February 2014 . As always, this US-directed mass murder was reverse-blamed on the
ever shifting Enemy face -- Russia's allied but duly elected government of the Ukraine. It was
only after this violent-coup Nazi-led and US directed overthrow of the elected
government of the very resource-rich Ukraine -- "the breadbasket of Europe" and sitting on
newly discovered rich fossil fuel deposits -- that Russia annexed its traditional territory of
the Crimea next to Eastern Ukraine, the latter after the violent coup put under the rule of a
US-Nazi-led government until its people fought back with Russia assistance for the now
NATO-targeted zones of the new Donetsk and Lugansk republics.
What is new now is that we are about to enter yet another NATO-member war build-up against
the cornerstone of Western ideology, the designated Enemy Russia. As usual there is amnesia of
the ever-recurring big-lie pretext, the need for another crisis to keep the two-billion-dollar
a day US-led NATO war machine going, the baleful puppet moves of Canada in the process, the
crisis of legitimacy of the lead attacker's UK government, and silent diversion from the whole
nightmare scenario unfolding in NATO-member states, mass media and even 'peace activist'
organisations.
Cui Bono?
The UK and the US followed by Canada and some of the EU have by expulsion of Russia
diplomats prepared the diplomatic way for war in the Ukraine to seize back these lost
coup-territories, and it will be in the name of "freedom", "human rights" and "the rules of
civilised nations". But there is much officially suppressed colour to the warring parties
political conflict which reveals who the truly heinous suppressor of human rights is.
Under mass media and corporate-state cover, the US-UK-NATO axis about to make war in Ukraine is
doing so under the factually absurd but non-stop pretext of "Russia aggression" constructed out
of the double-agent poisoning affair, with the guilty agents and poison having no proof but the
ever louder UK-led and NATO-state assertion of it in unison. Yet there is a clear answer to the
cui bono question -- which party does all this benefit? Clearly once the question is
posed, as opposed to completely gagged in the corporate press, Theresa May's slow-motion
collapsing Tory government -- now even challenged for its fraudulent Brexit referendum
protecting the big London banks from EU regulation -- has to have such a war-drum
distraction to survive. The old war of aggression pattern reverse-blamed on the official
enemy unwinds yet again.
It is revealing in this context how Canada's government has no such ruler need of war --
unless it be its Ukraine-descendent Foreign Minister up front and the very powerful and widely
Nazi-sympathizing Ukraine Liberal vote bank and leadership brought to Canada after 1945 to
overwhelm the preceding active socialist Ukrainian community in Canada. Canada's government --
not its people -- is in any case used to being a puppet regime in foreign affairs as a
twice-colonized rule by big business (why the NDP is not allowed to govern unless so
subjugated).
The Human Rights Question
In light of all of this suppressed factual background and motive for more war in Ukraine
which is unspeakable in the official news, interaction with the United Nations is of revealing
interest. While it has been the cover for US-led NATO executed genocidal wars of aggression in
the past as in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Korea, the pretexts of 'human rights',
'responsibility to protect' and 'stopping communist aggression', which are in fact always been
the spectacular opposite on the ground in terms of diseased, mass-murdered and destituted
bodies, these pretexts may not sell well when the background facts are no longer suppressed
from public view.
It is worthwhile recalling how Science for Peace leadership used to be against but has since
Afghanistan collaborated with these false-pretext wars in sustaining their illusions and thus
the war crimes and crimes against proceeding underneath them.
The NATO-executed Ukraine war now being orchestrated is especially revealing in its actual
record of 'protecting human rights' through 'international law' and 'norms of civilised
nations'. Completely buried in official records is a United Nations resolution n on Ukraine
that the US and Canada repudiated on November 20 2015 after the US-led bloody coup d'etat in
Ukraine was in full motion of claiming all the vast tracts of land and resources that were
Russia-speaking territory in the past.
The resolution was straightforwardly against "Nazi symbols and regalia" as well as
"holocaust denial". The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee of the UN
General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for a resolution to enable measures against "the
glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that facilitate the escalation of
modern forms of racism, xenophobia and intolerance". A total of 126 member-states of the UN
voted for it for the second time. Over 100 countries voted for a similar resolution in 2014
including "denial of the holocaust and glorification of the Nazi movement, former members of
the Waffen SS organization, including the installation of memorials to them, and post-coup
attempts to desecrate or destroy the monuments to those who fought against Nazism in Ukraine
during World War II".
How could any civilised state vote against these United Nations Resolutions for human rights
as Canada and the US have done and stood by ever since? Well instituted group hatred of the
officially designated enemy can justify anything whatsoever, and does so right into next
NATO-executed orgy of war crime and crimes against humanity, again inside Europe itself
flaunting reverse-blame lies and slogans as red meat for psychotically trained masses. It is
not by accident that Canada's Foreign Minister is in this near century-old Nazi loyalist vs
Russia-speaking conflict was before her appointment the "proud "granddaughter of a leading Nazi
war propagandist during its occupation of Poland and Ukraine described as a "fighter for
freedom".
Yet on the other hand, we must not lose ourselves in ad hominem responsibility.
Crystina Freeland, her Canada name, is interestingly propagandist in itself from her birth --
Christian Free Land -- but not observed in the corporate press. Minister Freeland is only a
symptom of something far deeper and more systemically murderous and evil in state-executed
unlimited greed and immiserization of innocent millions of people masked as 'human rights' ,
'freedom' and 'rule of law' . Her more sinister double in the US is also a renamed person of
the region, Victoria Nuland (read New Land) who orchestrated the whole 2014 mass-murder coup in
Ukraine and now tub-thumps on public television for the 'need to teach Putin and Russia a hard
lesson', aka another war attack by US-led NATO on Russia's borders.
The difference now is that the absurd pretext and geostrategic mechanisms now in motion
beforehand can be seen in front of our eyes -- that is, if we can still see through the
engineered prism of the US-UK led NATO war machine. This alone will stop it.
Germany - if I remember correctly - was instrumental on behalf of her client state Croatia
in persuading the U S to acquise in the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Many could see at the time that this would unravel all the balances put into place after the
travail of World War 2 . So it is proving to be . The German peoples' for whatever reasons have
a history of 'overeach'. On one hand the Germans are now - after millennium - within settled
borders but the political and economic wisdom and patience still seems lacking .
Within a week after Brennan's 'routine' visit in April 2014 to the Ukraine the Ukrainian army
launched a civil war. That was within 2 weeks of the CIA instigated coup an the end of
February 2014.
Looks like the rules of neoliberal game for Ukraine are as following: Ukraine should be ready
for fight Russia till the last Ukrainian, serving as cannon fodder for EU geopolitical interests
in Eurasia; (2) As a "debt slave" Ukraine should allow the transfer of ownership of all strategic
assets and commodities to EU corporations for pennies on dollar independently of how Donbass
situation is resolved; (3) Ukraine should buy EU products, no matter how poor they are and local
production should be be iether eliminated ("Baltics style deindustrialization"), or outsourced to
transnational corporations with Ukrainian as a cheap labor force (wage slaves).
Notable quotes:
"... And the Ukraine made a massive mistake. Their situation is completely different to Poland after USSR fell. ..."
And the Ukraine made a massive mistake. Their situation is completely different to
Poland after USSR fell.
Very true. Poland was the first Eastern European country which adopted neoliberal model
and thus served to a certain extent as "photo model" of neoliberalism for the rest of Eastern
Europe and xUSSR space. So standard of living did not drop too low. The country was somewhat
supported by EU and by the USA.
Ukraine was royally raped economically in 1991-2000. Probably as bad as Russia, may be
even worse.
In 2014 Ukrainians were lured by unrealistic dream of getting Western European standard of
living as a gift for breaking with Russia. As well as the resentment toward kleptocrat
Yanukovich (which actually was pretty typical neoliberal politician; not much worse then
Poroshenko )
Now they start to understand that the EU will devour the corpse to the bones and they are
stuck at the Central African level poverty of $2 a day or so (on average), but this is too
late.
A very typical story, a very typical outcome. Neoliberalism is a cancer. As Russian prime
minister quipped about economic rape of Russia by local and Western neoliberals in 1991-2000:
"We strived to get the best [economic] outcome, but it turned out like we got even worse then
average. As always." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Chernomyrdin
)
So in a way they stepped on the same rake twice: once in 1991 and the second time in 2014.
That's unforgivable.
March 20 marks a major anniversary. You'd be forgiven for not knowing it. Fifteen years
after we invaded Iraq, few in the US are addressing our legacy there. But it's worth recalling
we shattered that country.
We made it a terrorist hotspot, as expected. US and British intelligence, in the months
preceding the invasion, expected Bush's planned assault would invigorate Al-Qaeda. The group "
would see an opportunity
to accelerate its operational tempo and increase terrorist attacks," particularly "
in the US and UK ," assessments warned. Due course for the War on Terror.
Follow-up reports confirmed these predictions. "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause
celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and
cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement," Washington analysts explained in
2006.
Fawaz Gerges
lists two groups this milieu produced: Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), "a creature of the 2003
US-led invasion," and ISIS, "an extension of AQI."
There were good reasons for anyone -- not just jihadists -- to resent US involvement.
Consider sectarianism. "The most serious sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq's modern history
followed the 2003 US-led occupation," Sami Ramadani affirmed .
Nabil Al-Tikriti concurs , citing US
policies that "led to a progressive, incessant increase in sectarian tensions." The Shia death
squads "
organized by U.S. operatives" were one such decision.
The extent to which these squads succeeded is, in part, what scholars debate when they tally
the war deaths. Low estimates, like Iraq Body Count's, put civilians killed at just over 200,000. One research
team determined
some "half million deaths in Iraq could be attributable to the war." Physicians for Social
Responsibility concluded "that the war has, directly or
indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq," plus 300,000 more in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Iraqis surviving the inferno confronted a range of nightmares. The UN " reported that over 4.4
million Iraqis were internally displaced, and an additional 264,100 were refugees abroad," for
example. US forces dealt with Iraqi prisoners -- 70-90% of whom were " arrested by
mistake " -- by "arranging naked detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;" "breaking
chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;" and "forcing groups of male
detainees to masturbate themselves," to list some of the ways we imparted , with the approval of top
Bush administration officials, democratic principles.
Then there are the generations of future Iraqis in bomb-battered cities: Fallujah, Basra. In
the former, "the reported increases in cancer and infant
mortality are alarmingly high" -- perhaps "
worse than Hiroshima " -- while "birth defects reached in 2010 unprecedented
numbers." In the same vein, "a pattern of increase in congenital birth defects" plagues Basra, and
"many suspect that pollution created by the bombardment of Iraqi cities has caused the current
birth defect crisis in that country."
This bombardment began decades before 2003, it's crucial to clarify. We can recall UN
Under-Secretary-General Martti Ahtisaari's mission to Baghdad after Operation Desert Storm. He
and his team were familiar with the literature on the bombings, he wrote in March 1991, "fully
conversant with media reports regarding the situation in Iraq," but realized upon arrival "that
nothing that we had seen or read had quite prepared us for the particular form of devastation"
-- "near-apocalyptic" -- "which has now befallen the country," condemning it "to a
pre-industrial age" for the foreseeable future. This was the scale of ruin when the UN Security
Council imposed sanctions. The measures were "at every turn
shaped by the United States," whose "consistent
policy " was "to inflict the most extreme economic damage possible on Iraq."
The policy was, in this respect, a ripping success. The UN estimated
in 1995 that the sanctions had murdered over a half-million children -- " worth it ," Madeleine Albright said --
one factor prompting two successive UN Humanitarian Coordinators in Iraq to resign. Denis
Halliday
thought the sanctions "criminally flawed and genocidal;" Hans von Sponeck
agreed , citing evidence of "conscious violation of human rights and humanitarian law on
the part of governments represented in the Security Council, first and foremost those of the
United States and the United Kingdom."
Eliminating hundreds of thousands of starving children was just the prequel to the
occupation -- "the biggest cultural disaster since the descendants of Genghis Khan destroyed
Baghdad in 1258," in one writer's judgment
. But try to find more than a handful of commentators reflecting on any of these issues on this
dark anniversary. Instead, silence shows the deep US capacity for forgetting.
Nick Alexandrov lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He can be reached at: [email protected]
"... Politically the situation we see in Ukraine is that the ordinary people don't really care about the politics they are genuinely concerned about bread and butter it is quite sad actually that the US is treating the Ukraine as a pawn and a quite cheap one at that in its game with Russia ..."
1. There is some mystery in this Putin "bragging" about new formidable weapons. This is
not his style. Why now? Why do it when sanctions are in place and can be easily be tightened
as the result? Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence
information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in
Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not
do it. Otherwise this is just an open invitation for the new, more destructive and expensive
stage in nuclear arms race. The scenario that Russia should try to avoid.
2. Also the rule is: if your adversary is making a mistake, you should not try to stop
him. If missile defense systems and aircraft carriers are useless why not to allow the USA to
put another 100 billion dollars into it ? Something does not compute here. BTW both remain
perfectly viable as the first strike weapons (you never know what those tubes contain and
they can hold cruise missiles as well). The fact that they will perish is just part of the
cost of the whole operation.
3. Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into
military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So
succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.
4. After 2012 it is clear that the way the USA will try to undermine Russia is most
probably via political interference during the next election, in which there will be a power
vacuum as Putin finishes his last term, and there is no Putin II. The problem of the leader
succession is a well-known Achilles' spot of Russia. In 2012 the "collective West" achieved
pretty significant success in staging color revolution in Russia using pro-West (aka
Zapadniki) and comprador sector in Moscow as the fifth column. The political situation in
Moscow will always favor pro-European forces, as this city has a huge concentration of
employees of foreign companies, professionals and entrepreneurs who depend on the West and
earn money from the West (compradors) . Efforts to put in power a classic neoliberal like
Macron in France will be multiplied for elections in 2024. I do not see, why they can't be
more successful then in 2012.
5. While weakened by the recent McCarthyism campaign in the USA, Russian comprador sector
and neoliberals are still a very powerful political force and control a significant part of
media and oligarch money. Russian constitution was written by the USA. And scars from the
economic rape of Russia in 90th still did not fully heal. In other words, pro-Western forces
in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution. Probably
along with crashing oil prices before the elections again, or some other nasty trick. In this
case you do not need any missiles. As long as Russia is a neoliberal country Putin and his
policies remain a political anomaly. And Putin himself a maverick. There will be no another
Putin, but there can well be another Gorbachov, or, worse, Yeltsin. The same is true for
China, but at least China has political control of the Communist Party and state ownership of
the financial sector. The latter is not true for Russia and is a huge political risk. While
neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the
horizon.
6. Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country)
which can't be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a
geopolitical knockdown.
7. Hopes about "some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key
geopolitical players" are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this
is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency. This
situation will not probably change until the end of cheap oil, which might take another
twenty years or more.
8. If time is working against the USA, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging
hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of "offshored" manufacturing
from the USA and having the USA as debtor).
9. The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a
claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly
suspect.
10. The network of intelligence agencies around Russia (which now include Estonia and
Ukraine) probably represents much more serious threat then the "first strike" capability of
the USA, if such thing can ever exist.
11. "Collective West" can easily tighten sanction expanding them on more technological
sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy
when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.
12. China has less than 300 nuclear weapons and still is regarded as a formidable nuclear
power, probably spending 20 times less money in this area.
13. The claim that "The Kinzhal effectively removes any non-suicidal surface force
thousands of miles away from Russia's shores and renders its capabilities irrelevant" is
highly questionable. The idea of the first strike includes the elimination of the possibility
of launching most (or all) Kinzhal missiles carriers, as a necessary part required for the
success of the operation. Any losses of forward deployed units are acceptable in such a huge
game.
Just a pre-empt, tiring if you say you don't understand Ukraine, etc. then twenty
comments; dem Jews.
No rain, too much rain, dem Jews.
Well, you did utter the trigger word.
Guess your family believes religiously in the eternal victimhood and in the right of
Jewish people to demand special treatment from "others"– "because of Holocaust." --
This is over. After the fraternization of the Kagans' clan (via Nuland-Kagan) with neo-Nazi
in Ukraine and after Israeli's support for ISIS, Jewish pretenses on superior morality (and
similar fantastic inventions) have become unrealistic.
Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA,
or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine.
I'd go for Ukraine.
Something does not compute here.
Well, "if we can't have it it's not good."
Sour grapes.
Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into
military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective.
So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.
Agree.
In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to
stage another color revolution. In this case you do not need any missiles.
...While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the
horizon.
Agree.
Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country)
which can't be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a
geopolitical knockdown.
Agree.
But, perhaps that's not true. In any case, the resident "Team Russia" will now explain that.
As victory, of course.
Hopes about "some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key
geopolitical players" are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as
this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency.
Agree.
If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging
hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of "offshored"
manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).
and
The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a
claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly
suspect.
and
"Collective West" can easily tighten sanction expanding them on more technological
sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad
diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.
"Team Russia" coming up. You are about to see the light. Somehow.
Putin and those around him would better do concentrate on internal issues or eventually
issues will concentrate on them.
Agree.
This obsession with high tech is actually puzzling.
Not only that, but, overall, which "military" is better. "Whose father/older brother is
stronger" kid talk.
The Empire shall go for the Russia's internal problems and try to capitalize on that.
Ukraine was taken down using that approach. Oh, wait, not only Ukraine but all those who
didn't tow the line. Thinking that, somehow, a conventional war, only, will settle the issue
is not only delusional but stupid. Why would The Empire do that? No reason whatsoever.
It will try to do exactly what's been doing since '91. Internal dissent.
So, while Russian elites will keep building high tech weaponry (remember USSR), The Empire
will keep working on getting all those "unhappy" with Putin regime onboard and using them for
weakening the regime.
If the regime in Moscow can't, or doesn't want to see it, well, it doesn't deserve that
position. True, weapons industry is good for making money and stashing most of it offshore.
Not sharing that wealth, though, with general population is not that smart, just, they simply
can't help it. That's the way of the world there. Czars and serfs.
The problem is, of course, they can't step down even if they wanted to. Nobody wants
kangaroo courts and hanging. Or public murder broadcast live on Internet. Conundrum.
You make some interesting observations and your comment is thought-provoking
However I think the intent of the article was to explore some of the technical
issues of what we saw on March 1 not so much the political dimension and certainly your
approach is to try to get an overall wide angle picture that gets every possible Russia issue
into the frame
which by necessity means you give up some resolution or granularity if you will compared
to a more tightly focused article
You start with an initial premise of why announce these weapons now and question the
wisdom the simple answer may be technical related these weapons may be already mature
technically and now is the time to show them ?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
A couple more points you mention sanctions quite a bit but we have seen that Russia is
able to carry on just fine sanctions or not
The key indicator there is that sanctions are having a much bigger blowback on the US
itself i.e. the US is losing Europe
Germany has been quite vocal about US going a step too far in trying to dictate energy
policy which is key to German industrial export economy and besides they may finally be
finding their sea legs after years of subservience to an increasingly unhinged country that
is heading for the cliff
The Germans are going to get Nordstream 2 because they want it. It is actually more
important to Germany than to Russia Russia has been supplying energy to Europe for many
decades going back to Soviet times but is just now starting to feed the biggest energy
consumer in the world China
Other, smaller EU countries notably Italy have become quite vocal about Russia sanctions
hurting them we saw just now an election in Italy where the ruling claque were turfed
So it seems that the days of US dictating the politics to its European vassals may be over
the kind of friction they are making with sanctions and their increasing hysteria is only
hastening this process of vassals breaking off
The other issue is Ukraine you bring to this the the typical US perspective of 'losing' a
country this again goes back to the vassal game
The US gained all of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union but did Russia
lose anything sensible people will say the lost they burden of empire long after it had
ceased being profitable as with the British previously
Ukraine is historically something of an artificial country the original Kievan Rus
[Rurivik dynasty] was the original Russia it fell apart after the Mongol invasions but the
Russian and Ukrainian language and people are mostly indistinguishable other than the
Galician Catholic minority
For several hundred years the peoples of the Ukraine [ie even then it was more than a
single national people] were under rule by the Poles and Lithuania while the new Russian
empire based in Moscow gained strength and eventually took over 300 years ago
There are and have always been Ukrainian nationalists that do not like Russia but they are
in the minority the best way to think of Ukraine is similar to Scotland even the Irish are
more distant from the English than Ukrainians from Russians
Politically the situation we see in Ukraine is that the ordinary people don't really care
about the politics they are genuinely concerned about bread and butter it is quite sad
actually that the US is treating the Ukraine as a pawn and a quite cheap one at that in its
game with Russia
I don't believe the Russians look at the situation that way there is real fraternity among
many Russians and Ukrainians that goes to a fundamental level again similar to Scotland where
the country is divided on the issue of the English
So unless the EU and US are prepared to do a full Marshall plan to drag Ukraine into a
reasonable living standard then this 'win' will turn out to be something of a chimera
Heck the polls even in eastern Europe are trending against the post Cold War direction
with about half the people now questioning if the new boss is really better than the old
boss
And finally if you are going to do a wide angle shot like this then get the crazy cousin
into the picture also ie the US and its failing Ponzi economy that is bound to collapse just
on the principles of mathematics
China and Russia are working to bury the source of all US strength the petrodollar this is
literally kryptonite the US is quite simply toast once the petrodollar sinks
China is the world's biggest economy and biggest energy buyer Russia is the world's
biggest energy seller other nations too that are not so strong and have felt the body blows
of US economic warfare such as Iran, Venezuela and other will gladly join in
It's starting to feel like US has used up all its chips and all its markers
The entire developing world wants real prosperity not economic colonialism and corporate
plunder
These are some large and powerful currents that have to be taken into account if one is
going to take a wide angle shot of geopolitics
Ukraine is historically something of an artificial country the original Kievan Rus
[Rurivik dynasty] was the original Russia it fell apart after the Mongol invasions
Relationship of Kievan Rus to modern Russia and Ukraine is somewhat analogous to the
relationship of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire to modern France or Germany. Although both
Germany and France would have to be in the same linguistic family for the analogy to be more
accurate.
For several hundred years the peoples of the Ukraine [ie even then it was more than a
single national people] were under rule by the Poles and Lithuania
Correct. This meant not only political separation but largescale settlement (about 10% of
the population were Polish settlers – these were absorbed by the natives, so most
Ukrainians have some Polish roots), centuries of schooling, etc. And this was enough to lead
to a different culture, language, identity.
eventually took over 300 years ago
The eastern half of Ukraine was linked to Moscow in the 1650s (so indeed about 300 years),
but the western half in the 1770s (so 200 years) and Galicia not until 1939.
but the Russian and Ukrainian language and people are mostly indistinguishable
Incorrect. Ukrainian is about as close to Russian as it is to Polish (Ukrainian grammar
and pronunciation is closer to Russian, but Ukrainian vocabulary actually has more words in
common with Polish than with Russian). The Scandinavian languages are closer to each other
Russian is to Ukrainian. The catch is that in everyday life about half of Ukrainians, and
most urban Ukrainians other than people in Lviv, use Russian rather than Ukrainian. Kiev is a
Russian-speaking city (and Dublin an English-speaking one).
the best way to think of Ukraine is similar to Scotland
Anatol Lieven correctly observed that Ukraine's relationship to Russia is somewhere
between that of Scotland and that of Ireland, to England. Viewing it as Scotland is too
positive, as Ireland too negative. Given that Scotland itself nearly separated, it is natural
to see Ukraine as separate.
The Ukrainian economy is in a catastrophic state after four years of "euro-reforms," said
Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the public movement "Ukrainian Choice – People's
Right." "At the end of 2013. Ukraine's state and publicly guaranteed debt was 40% of GDP, and
by the end of 2017 it had more than doubled, exceeding 80% of GDP. In 2013, Ukraine's GDP per
capita was more than $ 4,075, and in 2016 decreased to $ 2221.
The average monthly salary in 2017 as a whole for the country was $ 267 (in 2013 it exceeded
$ 408), pensions are also 2.3 times lower than before the euro reform. Today, it is slightly
more than $ 48, while in 2013 it was almost $ 112, " Medvedchuk said.
With Ukrainian officials continuing to
talk up their hostility with neighboring Russia, the Pentagon announced on Thursday that
approval has been granted for the sale of Javelin anti-tank systems to Ukraine.
Russia is protesting the sale, however, arguing that the sale of the missiles would
encourage Ukraine to resume the use of force against Eastern Ukraine's ethnic Russian rebels,
with the idea that they would deploy the missiles against any rebel tanks, and also against
any Russian tanks that might join the fight.
Pentagon officials downplayed the issue, saying they don't believe the Javelin missiles
will materially change the military balance of power in the region. Despite obvious offensive
uses for such missiles, the US is trying to spin this as another "defensive" sale to
Ukraine.
The first line of the Ukrainian national anthem is "Ukraine has not yet died," one
interviewee says in "Breaking Point," a fierce documentary about that country and its recent
clashes with Russia. For a land often perched on the edge of ruin, she says, mere survival is
something to celebrate.
Directed by Mark Jonathan Harris and Oles Sanin, the film starts with a rundown of a history
that has repeated itself for centuries -- invaders have long prized Ukraine for its resources
and geography, and modern times are no exception.
... ... ...
The filmmakers supply terrifying footage: At civilian rallies, we see nightstick beatings
and bloody riots. During military battles, bullets whiz by and explosions shake the cameras.
Nerve-racking scenes follow Ukraine's extraordinarily bold volunteer soldiers.
there has been dramatic improvement in number of soldiers, usability of
equipment
That is the show.
The Ukrainian army's battlefield performance after February 2015 has not improved, nor
will the odds ever again be as favourable as they were in Mid-2014. Kiev has assembled an
army suitable for skirmishing and the occasional terrorist attack, nothing more strenuous.
Building an army capable of winning the war would entail discipline and sacrifice, and the
effort would be for nothing since the RF forces would move in and crush Kiev's army if it
were ever on the point of victory.
Kiev is content with the status quo – it's far from ideal for them but it's not so
bad as to justify the risks involved in a new offensive (this will never happen). Barring
black swan events, the Ukraine is meta-stable and can muddle along indefinitely, so long as
Moscow does not pull its finger out of its backside and resolve the situation properly.
Kiev is content with the status quo – it's far from ideal for them but it's not so
bad as to justify the risks involved in a new offensive (this will never happen). Barring
black swan events, the Ukraine is meta-stable and can muddle along indefinitely, so long as
Moscow does not pull its finger out of its backside and resolve the situation properly.
Two consideration:
1. Ukraine decides very little. Government was outsourced to Washington, DC. If creation
of tension with Russia is necessary, they will launch offensive.
2. Nationalist movements, especially far-right, have their own often destructive dynamics and
can do things that are illogical and/or highly harmful for the country. They also are ready
to fight and die for their ideas. In this sense Poroshenko is a hostage of Galician far right
"revolutionaries. "
Looks like Poroshenko is playing with fire. the longer Donetsk and Lugansk republics exists as a separate political
entities the more difficult and costly will be to bring them back. Each year matters in this respect. After, say, ten year
probably no compromise could ever emerge, unless Russia is weakened and /or dissolved into smaller statelets (the permanent
problem for Russia is change of leadership, so 2024 will be a very important year, as Putin does not have any realistic successor
who can continue his policies. So iether Russian "economic nationalists" (to borrow Bannon's term) or Pro-European faction
will come to power. In both cases foreign policies change. Or the US economy crash again and military budget will be
drastically cut, leaving no money for foreign military adventure and the protection of neoliberal empire. Direct attach
might elicit Russian response and as such is highly risky (especially in view of Russia being pissed by the USA all the time now
and might want to make Ukraine, as a US client, a boy for beating) , but periodic skirmishes just run this territory into
wasteland that Syria regions now are. They also drive population out.
Notable quotes:
"... IMO the emerging partition is likely to last a long time. Syria is only 80 years old as a state and a prolonged de facto partition as opposed to wartime occupation can easily become more or less perm ..."
"... If the Kurds of Afrin throw themselves on the mercy of the Syrian government in Damascus then Kurdish autonomy is squashed in that enclave. And, when it is all said and done, isn't that what Erdogan really wants? ..."
You don't understand what I mean. IMO the emerging partition is likely to last a long
time. Syria is only 80 years old as a state and a prolonged de facto partition as opposed to
wartime occupation can easily become more or less permanent as was the case with Turkey's
acquisition of Hatay. pl
I certainly don't dispute that Turkey is invading Afrin. And I agree with you that if things
continue to stand as they are now then that invasion will continue until all of Afrin has
been overrun.
But to simply extrapolate from what has happened into the future suggests that
circumstances won't change or - if they do - that Erdogan will continue on like some wind-up
automaton.
If the Kurds of Afrin throw themselves on the mercy of the Syrian government in Damascus
then Kurdish autonomy is squashed in that enclave. And, when it is all said and done, isn't
that what Erdogan really wants?
If the Kurds are too stupid or too proud to play that card then, yeah, sure, you and I
both agree that they will be ground into the dirt.
But if they do supplicate to Assad then the situation changes.
You (I assume) believe that in that circumstance Erdogan will continue to grind on with
this invasion regardless.
I believe he will beat his chest and then go home.
One of us will be wrong, and one of us will be right.
Somehow in numerous statements in this thread, mostly boiling down to "mine is more
Russian than yours", the key issues were missed. I am not even talking about obvious trolls
trying to denigrate Putin's foreign policy feats. He achieved a lot more with a relatively
weak hand than the US with a much stronger one, both in Syria and in Ukraine.
Admittedly, Ukraine does not count: only Americans, who have no history and don't know the
history of other countries, could have stepped into that particular pile of s Ukraine brings
ruin to anyone it supports. At the beginning of the eighteens century Ukrainian Hetman Mazepa
betrayed Russia and joined the Swedes. Peter the Great decimated Swedes in the battle near
Poltava. That was the end of Sweden as a great European power. Western Ukrainians fought for
Austro-Hungarian Empire in WWI. Where is that Empire now? Then "independent" Ukraine
supported Germans. Well, they lost WWI. Then Ukrainians served Hitler in WWII. USSR smeared
Nazi Germany over he wall. Then Ukrainians were "holier then thou" supporters of the Soviet
Union. Where is it now? So, if I were in the US or EU leadership, I'd make sure that Ukraine
is not my friend, simply for the sake of self-preservation.
Syria is a totally different story. The Empire, on behalf of Israel and Saudis, tried to
break it up into a bunch of powerless Bantustans. The plan seemed to be close to bearing
fruit until Putin threw a wrench into the works. With ridiculously small ground and air force
he turned the tide of the war. The Empire was frustrated. Hence the hysterics.
Anyway, IMHO Putin's Russia has two major weaknesses. One is the profusion of oligarchs
who stole their riches from the state and hid the loot offshore. He does not seem inclined to
tackle them, likely honoring the deal he made in 2000. "Protected" appear to include even
such notorious figures as Chubais (if you ask Russians, ~90% would say that oligarchs should
be stripped of their wealth, tried, and imprisoned; but as many or more would say that
Chubais should be publicly hanged). The other weakness is that it remains a one-man show,
i.e., the absence of credible state institutions and an obvious successor. The rest is
chaff.
"what we see is that western democracies are run by gangs of oligarchs and bureaucrats who
have almost nothing in common with the people they are supposed to represent."
Just for a moment I will take you seriously, although you sometimes write truly silly
stuff, and respond.
Yes, the AngloZionist would prefer to turn and absorb the Russian and Chinese elite, but
only as low subordinates. This is what they have been doing in other conquered countries
– generating a mix of the new and compliant part of the old elite with a greater
proportion of the new elite. The Russian neo-Liberals are ready and waiting for the job,
looking down on their compatriots as cattle (the same word as goyim, what an amazing
coincidence!?). Read what this Felix writes about the Russians. This gang turned Russia into
killing fields in 1917 and will gladly do it again given half a chance by their foreign
masters.
The masters are underwriting the full-time writing of puppets such as Karlin.
Karlin is the Russian Elliot Higgins , interpreting data without a faintest idea of
solid data analysis, a paid full-time hack drawing the right conclusions for the empire.
Perhaps he sees himself as a minister in the Russian puppet government after the successful
regime change.
Therefore, this group of regular trolls (about 10 nicks) on all Saker's
writings are aiming to be that future new Russian servant elite when Russia would be
absorbed. They are truly the last thing that Russian people need.
As I said above, I have seen it all before, it is deja vu all over again (Yogi Bear).
Actually life in Ukraine was not that bad in 2010-2014. Hopefully "After-Maydan" deterioration might be temporary,
although without new markets for Ukrainian industrial goods recovery is almost impossible. Also the level of foreign
debt is now much higher, so they dig a deeper hole for themselves to climb out. Other probable scenario is bankruptcy.
See also
Bill
Black Once a Poster Child for Austerity, Latvia Becomes a Hotbed of Corruption naked capitalism
Poland's level of GDP per capita is 6 times bigger than Ukraine's. They started out
around the same level in 1991 and were supposed to follow the same playbook. To the extent
that their paths diverged can be explained by Ukrainian corruption and incompetence.
Poland received hundreds of billions of dollars in EU subsidies and transfers. Not a fair
comparison. Even still today they are receiving this transfer of wealth from net contributor
countries in the EU (there's another good reason EU became unpopular in net contributor
countries like the UK and the Netherlands):
Energy subsidies from Russia to the Ukraine are estimated at hundreds of billions of
dollars since 1991. The Ukraine has been well subsidized since independence. What they have
been desperately lacking is governance.
Latvia now is a typical neoliberal debt slave and flourishing sex trafficking market. Not
that different from other Baltic states, Ukraine, Moldavia and generally all xUSSR space.
Bill mentions the brain drain from Latvia, but I seem to recall a quite massive general
emigration from the country during austerity, which also helped to "reduce unemployment" as
well. The neoliberal "methodology" for "showing economic success" is moral and economic
bankruptcy masquerading as "science". And wow. So we have Latvia to thank for the coming
nuclear holocaust as well. A true neoliberal market miracle.
Lambert's two principles of neoliberalism are once again brought to mind:
All those 'excess' workers who left were helping keep wages low in the EU
In the sense that Latvia's future productivity is sacrificed for short-term benefits on the
books, it starts to look like another asset-stripping scheme, and the costs are borne by
workers in the EU.
Latvia already has one of the highest levels of poverty and income inequality in the EU
and its population has dropped by about a fifth in the past 18 years which is a bit of a
record considering that there was no war, that is, unless you count the neoliberal war on
people. Some moved to the capital Riga but most bailed out of the country altogether and are
not coming back. You can find whole blocks of empty buildings in some towns.
But don't worry. The Latvians are on the case. The head of the Latvian Central Bank detained
for extortion and the Latvian Ministry of Defense both blame, you guessed it, Russia!
Lambert's two principles of neoliberalism may have to be updated. He already has
#1 Because markets.
#2 Go die.
He may have to modify the second one to say
#2 Go die or get the hell outta Dodge.
Now I may be prejudiced because the Gs came from deepest darkest Lithuania–and we're
talking out in the endless woods in a village along a lake.
When people talk about population decline in Latvia, you are talking about part of the
corruption. The native Latvians wanted a way of getting rid of the Russian population, many
of whom are considered immigrants. So dropping 20 percent of the population means throwing
out the Russians. When your "population policy " is based on something like that, you can
image what the country's economic policies are like.
In contrast–although Lithuania, too, has lost some 10 – 15 percent of its
population since restored independence–the Lithuanians came to terms, imperfect terms,
with their smaller Polish and Russian minorities. Nevertheless, the Lithuanians didn't go
whole-hog free-market fundamentalism. And when a recent president was found to be corrupt,
they impeached him and threw him out.
So you have different models for how to survive as a Baltic State. Latvia has made a mess
of its "model."
"Now of course that's still in a land where they had really severely repressed wages for
the working class and for middle class, and continued to tolerate a fair degree of
unemployment and underemployment for folks, as well. So, yeah it works really well for the
oligarchs. And they do employ people. The unemployment rate drops, but the country
invariably becomes extremely corrupt."
Was he still talking about Latvia or did he switch over to the USA?
Half a decade ago when Latvia was considered a success story for neoliberal austerity, one
animator made this great satire video making fun of how farcical it was to consider it
such.
Latvia also being part of that running sore which involves according to the US state
department's last global estimate, about 800,000 to a million victims per annum of people
trafficking. Of which around 80% are female, with a not stated amount being children, used
for both labour & sexual purposes.
I suppose that it comes as little surprise that the 2 main flows of these commodities is
from East to West & South to North.
An interesting discussion with two polar views on the situation. There is no good guys in the
story anyway. Nether the USA, or Russia, or Ukrainian nationalists, or separatists qualify. Truth
probably lies somewhere in between. The debate itself reminds the current political debate in the
USA between neoliberals/globalists and "economic nationalists"/isolationalists : the two sides do
not hear other and their positions are irreconcilable. Each has its own set of grievances. Its
own version of history. And its own vision of the desirable future.
Independence by itself meant huge stimulus to Western Ukrainian nationalists (who
historically lived a long time under Hapsburg empire). So their political ascendance were given
and Maydan was just the culmination point of a long process (actually encouraged by EU members
such as Germany, Poland , Baltic republics and Sweden)
The USA clearly tried to secure it geopolitical interests via forcefully turning Ukraine to
the West. Despite the fact that it was not completely ready for such a move yet; although were
slowly moving in this direction since independence. Germany (and EU in general) played the same
fatal role of "accelerator" as well. They wanted new markets for their goods and also have
geopolitical interests in weakening Russia (which did happened; Ukraine was the biggest strategic
defeat of Putin). The Nazi Lebensraum was, after all, about Ukraine.
But the process of "separation" from Russia was pretty much under way since independence and
proceeded at a brisk pace under Yanukovich too, who actually supported Ukrainian nationalists
during his term (especially Svoboda, hoping to create something like the USA two party systems:
nationalists vs Party of Regions). And it was Yanukovich government which prepared and intended
to sign the association agreement with the EU. Then Yanukovich hesitated to sign it and at this
point was doomed as pro-Western forces has already their own dynamics and financial support from
abroad. With the financial. organizational and political support support of the USA and EU were
able to depose him. Large (for Ukraine political scene) amount of money was injected, protesters
bused from Western Ukraine, and eventually yet another color revolution (the first was so called
Orange revolution which brought to power Yushchenko government) took care of Yanukovich regime.
The problem is that this "alternative" political course and a new vision of Ukrainian future
proved to be a minefield. Also the association agreement with EU was very unfair to Ukrainian
economic interests and essentially downgraded the status of Ukraine to the status of neo-colony
openly promoting deindustrialization like in Baltic Republics.
Some unrealistic dreams about benefits of Ukraine association with EU were pretty widespread
and become a political factor in the success of the Maydan. nobody understood that by trying to
balance between Russia and the West Yanukovich postponed the day of reckoning and kept economics
expanding. Everybody hated corrupt Yanukovich although some members of his cabinet were pretty
competent technocrats. Nobody calculated losses from the separation of economic ties with Russia
and having a hostile Russia as a neighbor. Hopes that EU will open its market for Ukrainian
agricultural goods and to Ukrainian gastarbeiters proved to be exaggerated. To say nothing about
the danger (or even mere possibility) of civil war as the result of Maydan. All those dreams
about improving the standard of living via association with EU were buried after the Maydan very
soon. The currency dropped around 300% after 2014 from 8.5 to 27 grivna per dollar. Markets in
Russia are almost completely lost.
Ukrainian nationalists decided that the success of Maydan gave them carte blanche on
neo-colonization of Eastern Ukraine as well as the suppression of Russian language and culture.
They miscalculated. This policy was similar to "Polinization of Western Ukraine" by Poles and it
faced growing resistance. Lugansk and Donetsk republic are direct results of this resistance (not
without Russia help). In other words this policy backfired, and now those regions represent a
Gordian knot for both the USA, EU, Russia and Ukraine. For Poroshenko government to agree on
federalization (which Minsk accords presuppose) means to lose face politically (Why to organize
Maydan in such cases, if the net result is a huge drop of the standard of living, loss of Crimea,
and federalization of Ukraine?), and they prefer military solution to the problem. The USA under
Trump administration are only happy to sell weapons to them (as well as coal to replace lost coal
from Donetsk region). And nuclear fuel to electrical stations inread of Russia. Meanwhile
economics is not improving and that also represents a political threat to Poroshenko, making push
for the military solution more probable.
Notable quotes:
"... Any agreement, however -- at least as far as the U.S. State Department is concerned -- would require that Russia must make the first move to ease tensions. ..."
"... Secretary Tillerson has made it abundantly clear that Russia must take the first steps to de-escalate violence and resolve this conflict by fully implementing the Minsk Accords." ..."
"... Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for ..."
"... . You can follow him on Twitter: ..."
"... This country is screwed, alas. Peacekeepers will not change much, but they could help stop shellings and thus help regular people who suffer the most. ..."
"... Strelkov came into Donbass on April 12, 2014 and the acting president Turchinov announced ATO (Anti terrorist operation) on April 7. The people of Donbass protested peacefully for months and no one wanted to talk with them. They sent tanks and jets instead. ..."
"... "And yes, his self-promotion as the "governor of Donetsk" was both illegal and unpopular with the locals." ..."
"... Indeed, that is why there is a civil war in Ukraine. "Red Cross officially declares Ukraine civil war" https://www.thelocal.ch/201... ..."
Any agreement, however -- at least as far as the U.S. State Department is concerned --
would require that Russia must make the first move to ease tensions. However, it is
unclear is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson or anyone in his department truly speaks for the
Trump Administration.
"It's important to be clear about U.S. policy towards the conflict: Crimea is Ukraine. The
Donbas is Ukraine. We will never accept trading one region of Ukraine for another. We will
never make a deal about Ukraine without Ukraine," John J. Sullivan, deputy secretary of state,
said during a speech in at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Diplomatic Academy in Kiev on
Feb.
21 . "To advance these fundamental goals, Secretary Tillerson appointed Ambassador Kurt
Volker as Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations in July of last year. And his mandate
is to break the deadlock with Russia over Ukraine. Secretary Tillerson has made it
abundantly clear that Russia must take the first steps to de-escalate violence and resolve this
conflict by fully implementing the Minsk Accords."
Time will tell if any progress will be made in solving the Donbas situation.
Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest . You can follow
him on Twitter:@davemajumdar.
If that's the case, then America needs to pull it's own illegal occupation forces out of
eastern Syria ASAP too! Eastern Syria is Syria. Eastern Syria is NOT part of Kurdistan! What
a bunch of hypocrites.
"One potential approach -- which as been proposed by U.S. special representative to
Ukraine Kurt Volker -- is where peacekeepers would be deployed in phases while Ukraine
implements some of the measures it agreed to under the Minsk agreements."
It stipulates that Ukraine should complete a number of things, and by the end of it
Donbass will be returned to Ukraine. If you add phased peacekeepers to this it could work,
the peacekeepers would start between Donbass and Ukraine, and then move into Donbass and get
more control the more of the Minsk 2 agreement Ukraine completed.
The peacekeepers could not be NATO or Russian troops for each side to agree obviously
Europe and the US have nothing of value to offer to Ukraine because there's little to
exchange it for. There is no economy and too few natural resources to fight for. Thus,
Ukraine will remain a suitcase without a handle despite wet dreams of its ultra-nationalists
(should be represented in the troll section of this thread).
It will remain useless as an economical ally to Russia in the upcoming years because
Ukraine is divided within itself.
The only thing it will be good for, is to serve as an example for everybody on how foolish
it is to overthrow democratically elected governments for the sake of fairy tales.
The conflict there will be frozen for decades, as it was frozen in Moldova and Georgia.
Without Russian and European investments, there will be no economical development in
Ukraine.
This country is screwed, alas. Peacekeepers will not change much, but they could help
stop shellings and thus help regular people who suffer the most.
Vadim, if Ukraine is not important, why do you spend so much of your precious time writing
about it? Why does Russia keep financing the war in Donbass if its so uninteresting to invest
in Ukraine? Why did Russia steal Ukrainian gas in the Azov Sea? Or why does it steal
ukrainian coal in Donbass? Where did the machinery from the Donbass factories go, Vadim?
-The coal belongs to the people of Donbass, not Ukraine, and Ukraine itself banned buying
gas from these territories in hope that it will cause more misery to the civilians living
there, just like Ukraine stole their pensions and their social welfare in hope for causing
maximal suffering.
The Donbass is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. Second Ukraine is not
obliged to pay for the Russian occupation of its territory. The occupation force is
responsible for everything that happens inside that territory, even the payment or not of
pensions.
That is a pure lie, the conflict between Donbass and Ukraine is a civil war. Russia is not
occupying those territories. And Donbass will return to Ukraine if they can follow thru on
the Minsk 2 agreement like they agreed to, but never will of course, because the
hyper-corrupt Ukrainian government need the legitimacy and distraction that war brings both
domestically to avoid coup and internationally as an excuse.
Strelkov, referring to the war he helped start in Donbas: "In the beginning, nobody there
wanted to fight."
Pro-Russian agitators like Pavel Gubarev tried to illegally take over government buildings
in E Ukraine, and also tried to organize protests, but they had little support from the local
population. The local population was cynical about Kiev, but they certainly weren't
interested in starting a civil war. That is why Strelkov and other Russians had to start the
war.
"but they certainly weren't interested in starting a civil war. That is why Strelkov
and other Russians had to start the war."
-Nobody wanted a war of course, that is one reason why the Kiev government became so
dependent on volunteer n4zists, they were the only one that was eager and willing to kill
their brothers at the whims of the unconstitutional coup regime. The average Ukrainian
soldiers didn't want to fight and a lot of the Donbass fighters came from defected Ukrainian
soldiers.
Again, all I have to do is point to Strelkov: "In the beginning, nobody there wanted to
fight."
"I dream of a Russia in its natural borders," he says. "At least those of 1939." He claims
to have been the one who convinced Putin to intervene militarily in Ukraine, at a time, he
says, when the Kremlin was still debating the proper approach to the country."
"I was the one who pulled the trigger for war," Strelkov boasts."
Doesn't matter at all what some commanders "boasts" , the war was started when the
unconstitutional and unelected government of Ukraine sent its army to crush the rebels.
Strelkov came into Donbass on April 12, 2014 and the acting president Turchinov
announced ATO (Anti terrorist operation) on April 7.
The people of Donbass protested peacefully for months and no one wanted to talk with them.
They sent tanks and jets instead.
"and also tried to organize protests, but they had little support from the local
population. "
Strelkov took Slavyansk on April 12 - that's not when he arrived. As for the ATO, yes, it
was announced on April 7, after armed separatists stormed regional government buildings in
Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov, raised Russian flags, and said they would hold an independence
referendum. What would Russia do if Karelia was taken over by pro-Finnish separatists? And
keep in mind, when the ATO was announced, Turchynov promised amnesty for separatists who laid
down arms.
No, the "people" of Donbass did not protest peacefully (Gubarev and others were not
representative of the people of Donbass). Gubarev and others repeatedly tried to seize
buildings and declare self-rule/independence. But polls during that time clearly showed that
people did not want independence, even if they were unhappy about Yanukovych being ousted
from the presidency. Public opinion did not really shift towards independence until after the
fire of Odessa and Mariupol, when Donbass regions were under separatist control and
influenced by Russian propaganda.
"Strelkov, referring to the war he helped start in Donbas: "In the beginning, nobody there
wanted to fight.""
-The civil war was started when the unelected and unconstitutional coup government sent
the army to kill the rebels in Donbass for just wanting their language rights protected.
"Pro-Russian agitators like Pavel Gubarev tried to illegally take over government
buildings in E Ukraine,"
-Pavel is a Ukrainian, and it is pretty far fetched to call it illegal to resist to an
illegal unconstitutional coup government.
I have not seen any proof that there was a coordinated coup to remove Yanukovych. On Feb
21st, Western powers got what they wanted when Yanukovych agreed to form a coalition
government with Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, and Tyahnybok (OK, maybe Tyahnbok wasn't they're first
choice) and have early elections. Yanukovych fled because the security forces abandoned him.
They most likely abandoned him because the Feb 21st agreement called for investigation into
violence on the Maidan, and they thought they would be blamed for everything.
I never said Gubarev wasn't Ukrainian. But he was clearly a pro-Russian agitator. And yes,
his self-promotion as the "governor of Donetsk" was both illegal and unpopular with the
locals.
He was in Kharkiv, but not on an official visit. He was fleeing. And sorry, but protests
attended by a few thousand people do not mean that Gubarev had widespread support.
"And yes, his self-promotion as the "governor of Donetsk" was both illegal and unpopular
with the locals."
-Hardly illegal, quite the opposite, more like it was a duty to resist an unconstitutional
coup government. And while I have not found a opinion poll on rebel controlled areas, the
closes I found suggest that the rebels has a very high support among the Donbass
population.
"An opinion poll that was taken on the day of the referendum and the day before by a
correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Washington Post, and five other
media outlets found that of those people who intended to vote, 94.8% would vote for
independence. The poll did not claim to have scientific precision, but was carried out to get
a basis from which to judge the outcome of the referendum, given that independent observers
were not present to monitor it. Even with those who said they would not vote counted in, a
65.6% majority supported separation from Ukraine"
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/...
You should probably try reading the actual article, instead of quoting Wikipedia. The
journalists polled 186 people, and of those 110 supported independence. That's a tiny and
insignificant sample size. People voting for independence had been going through a war
started by pro-Russian separatists, they were under the martial law of pro-Russian
separatists, and their only news was Russian propaganda telling them that Kiev was all Nazis
who wanted to exterminate Russia. Also, as you no doubt saw while reading Wikipedia, polls
taken before Strelkov and the others started the war showed that the locals were not
supportive of independence.
" them that Kiev was all Nazis who wanted to exterminate Russia"
-Pretty close to the truth actually, Kiev certainly did and are doing everything they can
do exterminate the local civilians in Donbas, but stealing their pensions, cutting of social
pay, hindering and stoping food, medicine and water.
Actually I mentioned that in my comment, there are no opinion polls but the closes we get
is the opinion polls from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Washington Post, which shows a
massive support for the rebels. Which is no surprise as we are talking about an illegal
unconstitutional pro-nazi government seizing power.
"tthe locals were not supportive of independence.
-The support for rebels are as all sources show quite high, of course nobody wanted the
war, but that was forced on them by the unelected coup government. If Ukraine had just
language right of the Donbass people there would have been no war.
No, Kiev was not filled with Nazis. Russia engaged in fearmongering to get Crimeans to
vote for independence. And what happened? The Ukrainian Army in Crimea resisted all
provocations to start a war. Kiev thought that the international community would come to its
aid. Remember the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2014? Svoboda and Right Sector
barely had any public support at all. The lie that Kiev was filled with Nazis was just that -
a lie.
Again, your Frankfurter Allgemeine poll was less than 200 people who happened to be
willing to talk to Western journalists. Only 110 of them said they wanted independence, and
this was after living under martial law and Russian propaganda for months. There were plenty
of actual scientific polls conducted in April before the "referendum" which showed that there
was no support for secession - at most, people wanted decentralisation.
Well, depends on what you mean with proof I suppose, is an American marxist oligarchs
admitting they spent millions to training demonstrators to subvert Ukrainian democracy
proof?
Is the fact that 100% of NATO controlled media support the Ukrainian opposition proof?
Is that fact that USA leaders went down to Ukraine and gave out cookies to the undemocratic
opposition and held speeches encouraging them to overthrow their government proof?
Is leaked phone calls from USA telling Ukraine which leaders should be installed(which later
were installed) proof?
Is Obama openly admitting they handled the "transition of power" in Ukraine proof?
Is the fact that the fascist and ultra-nationalist groups used used to overthrow the
democratic government of Ukraine(OUN) known CIA assets proof? I mean, basically, it was the
most blatant coup in world history. But if you literally want the USA government to totally
in details describe and admit to every detail you will just have to wait a few years or
decades until it is released in a FOI report like the fact that USA created ISIS.
- I'm assuming you mean the $5 billion the US invested over 20+ years? Russia invested $40
billion in the same time frame - 8x as much as the US (see Sergey Glazyev's March 24, 2014
interview with National Review). Financial investments in democratic institutions are not
proof of a coup, but nice try.
- NATO controlled media? There's no such thing.
- Why is it such a big deal with Nuland giving out cookies?
- John McCain didn't encourage them to "overthrow their government". When did he say that?
He said "We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine
its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe."
- Did you know that government officials from European countries and the EU also
encouraged the protesters?
- Nuland and the US were clearly operating to keep the opposition united, and yes, they
pushed their interests by encouraging Yatsenyuk to take the lead. But Yatsenyuk, Klitschko,
and Tyahnybok were already established as opposition politicians in general, and had been
accepted by the Maidan protesters before the US arrived on the scene. And besides, the Feb
21st agreement was what the US wanted - it would have placed those three figures in a
coalition government with Yanukovych, followed by early elections. All of that considered,
the fact that they emerged as leaders after Yanukovych left is really not surprising.
- Obama admitted what everyone knew - the US had entered into the crisis on the side of
the EU to push Yanukovych to listen to the protesters. Russia, of course, was pushing
Yanukovych to crack down. I remember when RT and Sputnik tried to twist it to mean Obama was
claiming the US was behind a coup - it was the most blatant spin/propaganda I've ever seen.
Go back and watch Obama's interview with Fareed Zakaria.
- You'll have to provide at least an ounce of proof that ultranationalist, far-right, or
neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine are "CIA assets". Otherwise you're just another baseless
conspiracy theorist.
- Yes, the US and USSR (Russia) have engaged in regime changes in the past. There's zero
proof though, that there was a coup in Ukraine.
lol, yes, that is what is called a coup. Not only a coup but the most blatant coup in
history I would say, I can only imagine if Russia funded trained and funded demonstrators
Mexico, Russian leaders went to Mexico handing out cookies and giving support to the
demonstrators, and ordering the opposition which leaders should be installed after the coup
and so forth,and then afterwards openly admitting it did it.Hilarious. But I guess you are
paid troll, and even when FYI releases information where USA planned the entire thing in
detail, like it has with its creation of ISIS and al-qaeda you will deny it still.
Here is the head of Stratfor by the way, the "Shadow CIA" saying the exact same thing,
xD
"Head of Stratfor, 'Private CIA,' Says Overthrow of Yanukovych Was 'The Most Blatant Coup
in History'"
http://www.washingtonsblog....
Watch the video of Obama's interview (
https://www.youtube.com/wat... - he clearly states "Yanukovych then fleeing after we had
brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine." In other words, he openly admits to helping
form the February 21st "Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine". Obviously
he's not talking about the Rada removing Yanukovych from office.
Nuland's conversation backs this up. It shows the Obama administration was helping
Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, and Tyahnybok stay united. Yanukovych was individually offering them
posts in his government. The US was pushing them to resist those offers. This culminated in
the February 21st agreement, where the US and EU got additional concessions from Yanukovych -
a coalition government with those three leaders, early elections, and investigations of the
violence on Maidan.
As for the head of Stratfor, George Friedman went on to write an article in which he said
that his quote was completely taken out of context (
http://www.businessinsider.... .
You think handing out cookies means people are funding coups. I'll have to remember that
when giving cookies to my children.
Russia does not steal anything, the Crimean people voted to join Russia and that is their
democratic right.
"With two studies out of the way, both Western-based, it seems without question that the
vast majority of Crimeans do not feel they were duped into voting for annexation, and that
life with Russia will be better for them and their families than life with Ukraine. A year
ago this week, 83% of Crimeans went to the polling stations and almost 97% expressed support
for reunification with their former Soviet parent."
https://www.forbes.com/site...
Crimea was a coup, initiated on February 27, 2014 when armed/masked militants (Spetsnaz?)
stormed the Crimean parliamentary building, raised the Russian flag over the building, and
barricaded themselves inside. During this occupation, an emergency parliamentary session was
called. It is unknown how many MPs participated - a number have said they were not there,
even though they were claimed to have been there. But in that emergency session, the Crimean
PM (Anatolii Mohyliov) was illegally removed and replaced with an unpopular pro-Russian MP
(Sergey Aksyonov). Aksyonov immediately called for the independence referendum. Just to
emphasize, all of this happened while the parliamentary building was under armed occupation
from unknown pro-Russian forces (most likely Spetsnaz), and against the will of the current
Crimean and Ukrainian governments. Interestingly, just the day before (February 26), the
Crimean government had told pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian protesters outside the building
that there would be no effort to seek independence from Ukraine.
Derp, there is quite literally a source right above you debunking your lies and linking to
several USA and Germany opinion polls verifying that the result of the referendum was
reflective of the democratic will of the Crimean people.
I didn't dispute the poll. What I said is that before the referendum Russia instigated a
coup, suppressed protests, and created a sense of fear in Crimea that drove people to think
Kiev was filled with Nazis. Of course they voted to join Russia after that.
Isn't that what happened throughout Ukraine when "protestors" (more accurately thugs) took
over the Regional Administration buildings and occupied them? Well, before the coup in Kiev,
numerous government buildings in other regions were occupied.
You said that it was a big propaganda exercise to portray being pro-Ukraine as being
pro-Nazi. Then why was the Euromaidan far right? Why were the most prominent activists and
leaders of the "revolution" associated with Svodoba and Right Sector? Why were there thugs
destroying monuments to Lenin? Why were many activists extolling Stepan Bandera and Roman
Shukhevych?
The people on the Maidan behaved like far-right lunatics and brigands. No wonder why there
it isn't difficult to conceive of them as Nazis.
If I were a woman in Crimea, I would be grateful that I am not living under the jackboot
of the Maidan thugs.
"... Nevertheless, the US retains its political clients in the Baltic , the Balkans and Eastern and Central European regimes. However, these clients are unruly and often eager to confront a nuclear-armed Russia, confident that the US-NATO will intervene, in spite of the probability of being vaporized in a nuclear Armageddon. ..."
"... Despite President Trump's campaign promises to 'pull-back', the US has re-entered Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in a big way. The Trump shift from global containment and realism to 'rollback and aggression' against Russia and China has failed to secure a positive response from past and present allies. ..."
"... China has increased economic ties with the EU. Russia and the EU share strategic gas and oil trade ties. Domestically, the US military budget deepens the fiscal deficit and drastically threatens social spending. This creates a scenario of increasing US isolation with its futile aggression against a dynamic and changing world. ..."
Russia has reduced and challenged the US pursuit of a uni-polar global empire following the
recovery of its sovereignty and economic growth after the disaster of the 1990's. With the
ascent of President Putin, the US-EU empire lost their biggest and most lucrative client and
source of naked pillage.
Nevertheless, the US retains its political clients in the Baltic , the Balkans and
Eastern and Central European regimes. However, these clients are unruly and often eager to
confront a nuclear-armed Russia, confident that the US-NATO will intervene, in spite of the
probability of being vaporized in a nuclear Armageddon.
Washington's efforts to recapture and return Russia to vassalage have failed. Out of
frustration Washington has resorted to a growing series of failed provocations and conflicts
between the US and the EU, within the US between Trump and the Democrats; and among the
warlords controlling the Trump cabinet.
Germany has continued lucrative trade ties with Russia, despite US sanctions, underscoring
the decline of US power to dictate policy to the European Union. The Democratic Party and the
ultra-militaristic Clinton faction remains pathologically nostalgic for a return to the 1990's
Golden Age of Pillage (before Putin). Clinton's faction is fixated on the politics of
revanchism . As a result, they vigorously fought against candidate Donald Trump's campaign
promises to pursue a new realistic understanding with Russia. The Russia-Gate Investigation is
not merely a domestic electoral squabble led by hysterical 'liberals.' What is a stake is
nothing less than a profound conflict over the remaking of the US global map. Trump recognized
and accepted the re-emergence of Russia as a global power to be 'contained', while the
Democrats campaigned to roll-back reality, overthrow Putin and return to the robber baron
orgies of the Clinton years. As a result of this ongoing strategic conflict, Washington is
unable to develop a coherent global strategy, which in turn has further weakened US influence
in the EU in Europe and elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the intense Democratic onslaught against Trump's initial foreign policy
pronouncements regarding Russia succeeded in destroying his 'pivot to realism' and facilitated
the rise of a fanatical militaristic faction within his cabinet, which have intensified the
anti-Russia policies of the Clintonite Democrats. In less than a year, all of Trump's realist
advisers and cabinet members have been purged and replaced by militarists. Their hard core
confrontational anti-Russia policy has become the platform for launching a global military
strategy based on vast increases in military spending, demands that the EU nations increase
their military budgets, and open opposition to an EU-centered military alliance, such as the
one recently proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Despite President Trump's campaign promises to 'pull-back', the US has re-entered
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in a big way. The Trump shift from global containment and realism
to 'rollback and aggression' against Russia and China has failed to secure a positive response
from past and present allies.
China
has increased economic ties with the EU. Russia and the EU share strategic gas and oil trade
ties. Domestically, the US military budget deepens the fiscal deficit and drastically threatens
social spending. This creates a scenario of increasing US isolation with its futile aggression
against a dynamic and changing world.
Ukraine is crucial in this Russian sense of territorial imperative. It's a tragically split
country, with part tilting toward the West and part facing eastward toward Russia. That makes
for a delicate political and geopolitical situation, but for centuries that delicate political
and geopolitical situation has been overseen by Russia. Now the West wants to end that.
Upending a duly elected (though corrupt) Ukrainian president was part of the plan. Getting
Ukraine into NATO is the endgame.
Note that the Ukrainian revolution occurred in 2014, which just happened to be the year,
according to the U.S. indictments, that Russia initiated its grand program to influence
America's 2016 elections. Kennan was right: Russia inevitably would react badly to the NATO
encirclement policy, and then America's anti-Russian cadres would cite that as evidence that
the encirclement was necessary all along. That's precisely what's happening now.
Which brings us to the fifth and final fundamental reality surrounding the revelation of
Russia's grand effort to influence the U.S. election. It was an incredible blunder. Given all
that's happened in U.S.-Russian relations this century, there probably wasn't much prospect
that those relations could ever be normalized, much less made cordial. But that is now utterly
impossible.
Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of seeking better relations with Russia. After getting
elected he repeatedly asserted in his first news conference that it would be "positive,"
"good," or "great" if "we could get along with Russia." Unlike most of America's elites, he
vowed to seek Moscow's cooperation on global issues, accepted some U.S. share of blame for the
two countries' sour relations, and acknowledged "the right of all nations to put their
interests first."
This suggested a possible dramatic turn in U.S.-Russian relations -- an end to the
encirclement push, curtailment of the hostile rhetoric, a pullback on economic sanctions, and
serious efforts to work with Russia on such nettlesome matters as Syria and Ukraine. That was
largely put on hold with the narrative of Russian meddling in the U.S. election and vague
allegations of campaign "collusion" with Russia on behalf of Trump's presidential
ambitions.
It doesn't appear likely that investigators will turn up any evidence of collusion that
rises to any kind of criminality. But it doesn't matter now, in terms of U.S.-Russian
relations, because these indictments will cement the anti-Russian sentiment of Americans for
the foreseeable future. No overtures of the kind envisioned by Trump will be possible for any
president for a long time. It won't matter that every nation does it or that America in
particular has done it or that the West's aggressive encirclement contributed to the Russian
actions. The U.S.-Russian hostility is set. Where it leads is impossible to predict, but it
won't be good. It could be tragic.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington, D.C., journalist and publishing executive, is
editor of The American Conservative . His latest book,President McKinley: Architect of the American Century, was
released in September.
This is an old method to unite the nation against external enemy. Carnage (with so much oil and gas) needs to be
destroyed. And it's working only partially with the major divisions between Trump and Hillary supporters remaining
open and unaffected by Russiagate witch hunt.
Notable quotes:
"... It is an age-old statecraft technique to seek unity within a state by depicting an external enemy or threat. Russia is the bête noire again, as it was during the Cold War years as part of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Russophobia -- "blame it all on Russia" -- is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day of reckoning when furious and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for their legitimate grievances. ..."
"... The dominant "official" narrative, from the US to Europe, is that "malicious" Russia is "sowing division;""eroding democratic institutions;" and "undermining public trust" in systems of governance, credibility of established political parties, and the news media. ..."
"... A particularly instructive presentation of this trope was given in a recent commentary by Texan Republican Representative Will Hurd. In his piece headlined, "Russia is our adversary" , he claims: "Russia is eroding our democracy by exploiting the nation's divisions. To save it, Americans need to begin working together." ..."
"... He contends: "When the public loses trust in the media, the Russians are winning. When the press is hyper-critical of Congress the Russians are winning. When Congress and the general public disagree the Russians are winning. When there is friction between Congress and the executive branch [the president] resulting in further erosion of trust in our democratic institutions, the Russians are winning." ..."
"... The endless, criminal wars that the US and its European NATO allies have been waging across the planet over the past two decades is one cogent reason why the public has lost faith in grandiose official claims about respecting democracy and international law. ..."
"... The US and European media have shown reprehensible dereliction of duty to inform the public accurately about their governments' warmongering intrigues. Take the example of Syria. When does the average Western citizen ever read in the corporate Western media about how the US and its NATO allies have covertly ransacked that country through weaponizing terrorist proxies? ..."
"... The destabilizing impact on societies from oppressive economic conditions is a far more plausible cause for grievance than outlandish claims made by the political class about alleged "Russian interference". ..."
"... Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV. ..."
Russophobia - "blame it all on Russia" - is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day of reckoning when furious
and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for their legitimate grievances
It is an age-old statecraft technique to seek unity within a state by depicting an external
enemy or threat. Russia is the bête noire again, as it was during the Cold War years as
part of the Soviet Union.
But the truth is Western states are challenged by internal problems. Ironically, by denying their own internal democratic challenges, Western authorities are
only hastening their institutional demise.
Russophobia -- "blame it all on Russia" -- is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day
of reckoning when furious and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for
their legitimate grievances.
The dominant "official" narrative, from the US to Europe, is that "malicious" Russia is
"sowing division;""eroding democratic institutions;" and "undermining public trust" in systems
of governance, credibility of established political parties, and the news media.
This narrative has shifted up a gear since the election of Donald Trump to the White House
in 2016, with accusations that the Kremlin somehow ran "influence operations" to help get him
into office. This outlandish yarn defies common sense. It is also running out of thread to keep
spinning.
Paradoxically, even though President Trump has rightly rebuffed such dubious claims of
"Russiagate" interference as "fake news", he has at other times undermined himself by
subscribing to the notion that Moscow is projecting a campaign of "subversion against the US
and its European allies." See for example the National Security Strategy he signed off in
December.
Pathetically, it's become indoctrinated belief among the Western political class that
"devious Russians" are out to "collapse" Western democracies by
"weaponizing disinformation" and spreading "fake news" through Russia-based
news outlets like RT and Sputnik.
Totalitarian-like, there seems no room for intelligent dissent among political or media
figures.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has chimed in to
accuse Moscow of "sowing division;" Dutch state intelligence claim Russia
destabilized the US presidential election; the European Union commissioner for security, Sir
Julian King, casually lampoons Russian news media as "Kremlin-orchestrated
disinformation" to destabilize the 28-nation bloc; CIA chief Mike Pompeo recently warned
that Russia is stepping up its efforts to tarnish the Congressional mid-term elections later
this year.
On and on goes the narrative that Western states are essentially victims of a nefarious
Russian assault to bring about collapse.
A particularly instructive presentation of this trope was given in a recent commentary by Texan
Republican Representative Will Hurd. In his piece headlined, "Russia is our adversary"
, he claims: "Russia is eroding our democracy by exploiting the nation's divisions. To save
it, Americans need to begin working together."
Congressman Hurd asserts: "Russia has one simple goal: to erode trust in our democratic
institutions It has weaponized disinformation to achieve this goal for decades in Eastern and
Central Europe; in 2016, Western Europe and America were aggressively targeted as
well."
Lamentably, all these claims above are made with scant, or no, verifiable evidence. It is
simply a Big Lie technique of relentless repetition transforming itself into "fact"
.
It's instructive to follow Congressman Hurd's thought-process a bit further.
He contends: "When the public loses trust in the media, the Russians are winning. When
the press is hyper-critical of Congress the Russians are winning. When Congress and the general
public disagree the Russians are winning. When there is friction between Congress and the
executive branch [the president] resulting in further erosion of trust in our democratic
institutions, the Russians are winning."
As a putative solution, Representative Hurd calls for "a national counter-disinformation
strategy" against Russian "influence operations" , adding, "Americans must
stop contributing to a corrosive political environment".
The latter is a chilling advocacy of uniformity tantamount to a police state whereby any
dissent or criticism is a "thought-crime."
It is, however, such anti-democratic and paranoid thinking by Western politicians -- aided
and abetted by dutiful media -- that is killing democracy from within, not some supposed
foreign enemy.
There is evidently a foreboding sense of demise in authority and legitimacy among Western
states, even if the real cause for the demise is ignored or denied. Systems of governance,
politicians of all stripes, and institutions like the established media and intelligence
services are increasingly held in contempt and distrust by the public.
Whose fault is that loss of political and moral authority? Western governments and
institutions need to take a look in the mirror.
The endless, criminal wars that the US and its European NATO allies have been waging across
the planet over the past two decades is one cogent reason why the public has lost faith in
grandiose official claims about respecting democracy and international law.
The US and European media have shown reprehensible dereliction of duty to inform the public
accurately about their governments' warmongering intrigues. Take the example of Syria. When
does the average Western citizen ever read in the corporate Western media about how the US and
its NATO allies have covertly ransacked that country through weaponizing terrorist proxies?
How then can properly informed citizens be expected to have respect for such criminal
government policies and the complicit news media covering up for their crimes?
Western public disaffection with governments, politicians and media surely stems also from
the grotesque gulf in social inequality and poverty among citizens from slavish adherence to
economic policies that enrich the wealthy while consigning the vast majority to unrelenting
austerity.
The destabilizing impact on societies from oppressive economic conditions is a far more
plausible cause for grievance than outlandish claims made by the political class about alleged
"Russian interference".
Yet the Western media indulge this fantastical "Russiagate" escapism instead of campaigning
on real social problems facing ordinary citizens. No wonder such media are then viewed with
disdain and distrust. Adding insult to injury, these media want the public to believe Russia is
the enemy?
Instead of acknowledging and addressing real threats to citizens: economic insecurity,
eroding education and health services, lost career opportunities for future generations, the
looming dangers of ecological adversity, wars prompted by Western governments trashing
international and diplomacy, and so on -- the Western public is insultingly plied with corny
tales of Russia's "malign influence" and "assault on democracy."
Just think of the disproportionate amount of media attention and public resources wasted on
the Russiagate scandal over the past year. And now gradually emerging is the real scandal that
the American FBI probably colluded with the Obama administration to corrupt the democratic
process against Trump.
Again, is there any wonder the public has sheer contempt and distrust for "authorities" that
have been lying through their teeth and playing them for fools?
The collapsing state of Western democracies has got nothing to do with Russia. The
Russophobia of blaming Russia for the demise of Western institutions is an attempt at
scapegoating for the very real problems facing governments and institutions like the news
media. Those problems are inherent and wholly owned by these governments owing to chronic
anti-democratic functioning, as well as systematic violation of international law in their
pursuit of criminal wars and other subterfuges for regime-change objectives.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several
languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a
scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For
over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and
Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation
and Press TV.
Here is an interesting article that points to the new American strategy with respect to Iran and central Asia. Iran is already
being attacked from West and East in the North. And central Asia is next. This might force Iran to pull back some forces from Syria
and Iraq.
THE EARTHQUAKE that shook Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on January 12 is one of the worst
disasters in human history. The quake flattened houses, hotels, and government buildings,
including the National Palace and UN headquarters. By some estimates, 60 percent of
Port-au-Prince's buildings collapsed. Even more damage struck some of the smaller towns near
the capital like Leogane and Jacmel. At least 230,000 people were left dead, 300,000 in need of
medical attention, 1.5 million homeless, and over 2 million bereft of food and water.
The Obama administration reacted immediately. "I have directed my administration to respond
with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives," Obama told the nation in a
speech he delivered the day after the quake. "The people of Haiti will have the full support of
the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to
deliver the humanitarian relief -- the food, water, and medicine -- that Haitians will need in
the coming days. In that effort, our government, especially USAID and the Departments of State
and Defense are working closely together and with our partners in Haiti, the region, and around
the world." 1
This seemed a far cry from the reaction of the Bush administration to Hurricane Katrina,
where tens of thousands of the city's poor, mostly Black, residents were left stranded and
without help as Bush sent troops and Blackwater paramilitaries to police the city. The lack of
a prompt humanitarian response prompted rap artist Kanye West to famously state, "George Bush
doesn't care about Black people."
Yet while Obama said all the right things, the gap between his words and deeds has been
immense. When all is said and done, the Haitian relief effort looks eerily like a replay of
Katrina, only on a larger scale. A month into the disaster, the U.S. and UN were managing to
feed only 1 million people, leaving more than a million people without relief aid. 2
Instead of mobilizing to provide water, food, and housing for the victims, the U.S. focused on
occupying the country with 20,000 U.S. troops and surrounding it with a flotilla of U.S. Navy
and Coast Guard ships.
This military effort actually impeded the delivery of urgent aid. In an op-ed piece in the
Wall Street Journal entitled "Haiti: Obama's Katrina," three doctors who volunteered
to provide emergency services wrote, "Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane
Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry
federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the latest
international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe." After they
describe the horrific conditions in Haiti's hospitals, the doctors continue, "The U.S. response
to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment. Our operation received virtually no
support from any branch of the U.S. government, including the State Department . Later, as we
were leaving Haiti, we were appalled to see warehouse-size quantities of unused medicines, food
and other supplies at the airport, surrounded by hundreds of U.S. and international soldiers
standing around aimlessly." 3
The U.S. government and media have covered up these realities with puff pieces about the
supposed success of U.S. relief efforts. They have also wrongly portrayed this catastrophe as
simply a natural disaster, ignoring the historical and social causes of Haiti's poverty --
principally the imperialist stranglehold over the nation -- that exacerbated the impact of the
earthquake.
If the military flotilla is not there to deliver aid, why is it there? The Obama
administration has used the cover of humanitarian aid to occupy the country in pursuit of
several goals. First and foremost, after disastrous wars that have discredited U.S.
interventionism, Obama hopes through the operation in Haiti to win back domestic support for
military intervention. What better means to do that than to present a military invasion and
occupation as a humanitarian relief effort?
With a flotilla of ships surrounding the country, the U.S. also aims to repatriate desperate
Haitians and prevent a wave of refugees reaching Florida. Through this assertion of power, the
U.S. aims also to reassert its dominance in the Caribbean and Latin America over regional
rivals like Venezuela and international ones like China. Finally, the U.S. intends to impose a
traditional neoliberal economic program on Haiti itself in the interest of U.S. multinational
corporations and the Haitian ruling class.
Not just a natural disaster
Most of the media reported the earthquake as a natural disaster. While this is no doubt true,
that is only part of the story. Certainly, there was talk of Haiti being the poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere, with over 80 percent of its population making about $2 a day. Media
acknowledged that the Haitian state was completely unprepared and unable to respond to the
crisis not only in Port-au-Prince, but throughout the country. However, the reason for these
conditions -- the historical context -- is left out. The story of Haiti's poverty is merely an
excuse to further justify why Haiti needs help from the United States, even though the "help"
Haiti has received from the U.S. and other world powers is precisely the reason for Haiti's
extreme poverty.
Some conservative commentators blamed Haitians for their situation. Pat Robertson on The
700 Club claimed that the disaster was the result of a pact that Haitians made with the
devil during their revolution from 1791 to 1804. The devil was merely taking his revenge on
Haitians more than 200 years later. 4 In a more polite, but no less racist manner,
David Brooks argued that the root cause of the social problems in Haiti was their
"progress-resistant" culture. He claimed,
There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is
capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is
often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and
harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10. We're all supposed to politely respect each other's
cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy
was just exacerbated by one of them. 5
These are extreme versions of a dominant media story that essentially blames the victims of
the earthquake. None of this answers the real questions. Why are the majority of Haitians so
poor? Why according to the mayor of Port-au-Prince, were 60 percent of the buildings unsafe in
normal conditions? Why is there no building regulation in a city that sits on a fault line? Why
was the Haitian state so weak and disorganized before and after the earthquake? To answer these
questions, we must delve into Haiti's history.
European slavery, revolution, and U.S. domination
The answer lies in Haiti's history of European conquest, slavery, resistance, and U.S. imperial
domination. At every step, instead of aiding the Haitian majority, the U.S. has manipulated the
country's politics and exploited its poverty in pursuit of profit, and used it as a pawn in its
competition with regional and international rivals. In doing so the U.S. has reduced Haiti to
abject poverty and incapacitated its government to manage the society and the current crisis.
This history, a second and unnatural fault line, interacted with the natural one to make the
earthquake so devastating.
Columbus set off the first tremors when he landed on the island he called Hispaniola in
1492. He proceeded to enslave the Taino natives, whose population was estimated to be more than
half a million. The combination of European disease, massacre, and brutal exploitation led to
the genocide of the native population. Spain ceded the western section of the island in 1697 to
France, which renamed it San Domingue. Spain remained in control of the eastern section of the
island, Santo Domingo, which would become the Dominican Republic. French merchants and planters
turned their colony into a vast slave plantation and slaves from Africa replaced Indians and
white indentured servants. The colony was a killing field where slaves were literally worked to
death -- half the African slaves who arrived died within a few years. But it was an enormously
profitable one. San Domingue was the richest colony in the new world; the slave plantations
produced half of the world's coffee, 40 percent of its sugar, as well as a host of other
commodities. 6
In 1791, Toussaint L'Ouverture, a literate freed slave, led the world's first successful
slave revolution. Toussaint defeated the three great empires of the age -- France, Spain, and
England -- which all attempted to defeat the great slave army. During the struggle, the French
managed to kidnap Toussaint and jail him in France, where he died. His second-in-command,
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, led the final victory and established the new nation of Haiti in
1804.
Haiti's very existence was a threat to all the empires and their colonies. They all lived
off profits from plantation slavery. So the great powers quarantined the country, attempting to
prevent the spread of slave revolution. France finally recognized Haiti in 1824, but on the
condition that it pay reparations to France for the loss of its property -- its slaves. In
today's terms this sum amounted to $21 billion. Thus France shackled Haiti with debt at its
birth that it did not finish repaying until 1947, fundamentally distorting the nation's
development. 7
Under the eagle
The U.S. was one of the last powers to recognize Haiti, finally doing so in 1862. It became
interested in Haiti not to help it, but instead to plunder it. In the late nineteenth century
the U.S. became an imperialist power, extending its talons to snatch control of the Caribbean,
Latin America, and the Pacific from potential rivals like Spain, Britain, and Germany. The U.S.
launched its imperial conquest under the guise of liberating Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the
Philippines from Spain. Puerto Rico and the Philippines became U.S. colonies -- U.S. marines
killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to conquer the island -- while Cuba became a colony
in all but name. The U.S. then policed the Caribbean as if it were an American lake. The number
of occupations and invasions over the following decades is too many to list.
A leader of this conquest was Major General Smedley Butler, who became one of the most
decorated marines in history. After he turned against U.S. imperialism later in life, he summed
up his experience:
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this
country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps . And during that period, I spent most
of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the
Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism . I helped make Mexico,
especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping
of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of
racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown
Brothers in 1909–1912 . I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar
interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking
back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to
operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. 8
The U.S. saw Haiti as one of the key sites to establish client governments to protect U.S.
interests in the Caribbean. 9 In 1915 the U.S. used the pretext of political turmoil
in Haiti to invade the country and occupy it until 1934. The U.S. plundered the island, forced
it to repay its debts to the U.S., and established involuntary corvee gang labor to build
roads. United States corporations, hoping to take advantage of Haiti's cheap labor, gained
control of 266,000 acres of Haitian land, displacing thousands of Haitian peasants. Haitians
rose up against this exploitation in a mass liberation movement, the Cacos Rebellion, led by
Charlemagne Peralte. The U.S. slaughtered thousands of resistance fighters, crucifying Peralte
in Port-au-Prince.
The U.S. also established one of the most reactionary institutions in Haitian society, the
Haitian National Army. The U.S. designed that army not to fight foreign wars but to repress the
country's peasant masses.
The neoliberal "plan of death"
While the U.S. ended its occupation of Haiti -- prompted in part by a renewed wave of protests
and strikes by workers and students -- it continued to intervene in the country's politics and
economics with devastating consequences. From 1957 to 1986, the U.S. supported the father-son
dictatorship of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. The
Duvaliers' dictatorship maintained power through the army and a vast network of death squads
called the Tonton Macoutes. The U.S. backed them as a counterweight to Fidel Castro who had
aligned Cuba with Russia in the Cold War struggle for Latin America and the Caribbean. Most
observers believe that Papa Doc Duvalier's Macoutes killed tens of thousands. 10 The
Duvaliers' economic vision for Haiti -- one that has continued to motivate U.S. plans for Haiti
-- was to establish Haiti as low-tax, low-wage, non-union offshore assembly site for U.S.
corporations.
Though half of Haitians lived in dire poverty, Haiti until the mid–1980s was
self-sufficient in the production of rice, its most important staple. All this changed with the
imposition of neoliberal policies, pushed by the United States, that required Haiti to slash
tariffs, privatize state-owned industries, and cut the state's agricultural budget. Haitian
activists would come to call it a "plan of death."
President Reagan pushed this plan as part of his Caribbean Basin Initiative that aimed to
open up the area to U.S. corporations and U.S. agricultural products. Baby Doc opened up the
Haitian market to a wave of U.S. agribusiness exports like rice and wheat, which are heavily
subsidized. The Haitian peasants were simply unable to compete with these cheap, subsidized
imports, and Haiti's rural economy gradually collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of peasants
abandoned the countryside for the cities to seek some kind of employment. Deprived of their
livelihood, peasants turned to cutting down trees to make charcoal for cooking fuel, leading to
the massive deforestation of the country, and the further destruction of Haiti's already
depleted soil. 11 As a result, Port-au-Prince, which had been a small town of 50,000
in the 1950s, exploded in size to nearly 800,000 in the 1980s and well over 2 million today.
12
Reagan and Baby Doc claimed that they would absorb these dislocated peasants into an
enlarged sweatshop industry. But the various factories in the export processing zones only
created about 60,000 jobs. As a result, the masses in Port-au-Prince gathered in slums, left to
survive on remittances from relatives who had fled abroad and income scraped together in a
highly unstable informal economy.
Finally, the U.S. tried to subject Haiti to the same tourist industry that swept the rest of
the Caribbean. Baby Doc cut deals with Club Med and various hotel chains to offer the country's
beaches for tourism. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton first came to Haiti on their honeymoon as
part of the jet set that Baby Doc welcomed into the swank resorts on the island. It would not
be the last time the Clintons played around in Haiti.
Baby Doc took out $1.9 billion in loans from the U.S., other powers, and international
financial institutions to bankroll this neoliberal "reform" of the country. 13
Meanwhile, Haitians suffered a calamitous drop in their standard of living; during the 1980s,
absolute poverty increased by 60 percent -- from 50 to 80 percent of the population.
14 The dictator and his family joined the American and Haitian ruling class to party
and profit at the expense of Haitian peasants, workers, and the urban poor.
Killing social reform
Peasants, workers, and the urban poor rose up against Baby Doc in opposition to this social
catastrophe in a tremendous social movement called Lavalas (the Creole word for a cleansing
flood). A young Catholic priest and advocate of liberation theology, Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
became the spokesperson of the struggle. In 1986, Lavalas succeeded in driving Baby Doc from
power. The U.S. whisked him away into exile in France along with $505 million stolen from the
country. 15 Duvalier left behind a shattered country, shackled again with the odious
debt accrued by a dictator to finance the neoliberal disaster.
Under pressure from the movement -- but also to stem the tide of impoverished Haitian
refugees pouring out of the country -- the U.S. and Haitian governments finally agreed to hold
elections in 1990. The U.S. spent $36 million to try to get their candidate, a former World
Bank employee, elected. He received only 14 percent of the vote. Aristide defeated fourteen
rivals, winning two-thirds of the vote, on a platform of extensive popular social reforms. The
U.S. and the Haitian ruling class literally saw red. They thought that, in the words of a U.S.
embassy official in Port-au-Prince, a "Marxist maniac" had been elected to the Haitian
government. 16 President George Bush Sr. backed a military coup against Aristide in
1991 and tacitly backed the brutal regime that ruled Haiti from 1991 to 1994.
The military massacred thousands of Lavalas activists and drove 38,000 more out of the
country. Bush Sr. and his successor President Bill Clinton repatriated most of these refugees
and jailed others in Krome Detention Center in Florida and Guantánamo in Cuba. After an
international outcry, the U.S. opted for a face-saving intervention to restore Aristide to
power in 1994, but on the condition that he agree to the neoliberal plan of death. Aristide
signed on to the deal but resisted its full implementation during his remaining two years in
office. He did abolish the Haitian military in 1995 -- a great victory for the movement -- and
implemented some reforms, but it was far from what he had promised during the struggle against
Duvalier. "The author of a text entitled 'Capitalism is a Mortal Sin,'" wrote Paul Farmer at
the time,
now meets regularly with representatives of the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and AID [U.S. Agency for International Development]. He was once the priest of the
poor; now he's president of a beleaguered nation, run into the ground by a vicious military
and business elite and by their friends abroad. Aristide finds himself most indebted to the
very people and institutions he once denounced from the pulpit. 17
Aristide's Lavalas ally and successor, René Préval, implemented much of the
U.S. neoliberal agenda during his term from 1996 to 2000. 18
Aristide would again run for and win the presidency in 2000, to the great irritation of
Clinton and then-President George W. Bush. In his second term, Aristide implemented reforms
such as raising the minimum wage and building schools. He also began to demand that France
refund the $21 billion that it forced Haiti to pay from 1824 to 1947. 19 At the same
time, however, Aristide backed new sweatshop developments in Ounaminthe and agreed to other
neoliberal measures. 20 But the U.S. was not appeased and France was outraged.
Another coup and U.S. occupation
The U.S., France, and Canada used the pretext of charges that Aristide manipulated the
parliamentary elections, something they usually tolerate with their own allies, to justify a
destabilization campaign against Aristide and yet another coup. Bush, of course, had no ground
to stand on as he himself had stolen the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Nevertheless, the
U.S., Canada, and France imposed economic sanctions, mounted a vast propaganda campaign against
Aristide, backed the ruling-class political opposition in the Group of 184, and aided the
right-wing death squads. Finally, in 2004, as the death squads swept through the country, the
U.S. kidnapped Aristide, whisked him out of the country to temporary exile in the Central
African Republic and to final exile in South Africa. Thus, on the two hundredth anniversary of
its declaration of independence, Haiti was occupied by the U.S., yet again.
Soon the U.S. delegated the occupation to the UN and its 9,000 mostly Brazilian troops, who
continue to patrol the country to this day. This UN force, MINUSTAH, protected the
U.S.-installed puppet regime headed up Gérard Latortue who they brought out of
retirement from Boca Raton, Florida. The coup regime was utterly corrupt and brutal. With its
death squad allies, the regime conducted a terror against the remnants of the social movements
and Aristide's party, Fanmi Lavalas. The combination of death squad and UN repression killed an
estimated 3,000 people. 21 The UN troops either joined the slaughter or stood aside
while repression swept the island. 22
While the U.S. and UN allowed elections in 2006, they banned Aristide's party, the most
popular party in the country. Aristide's former ally, René Préval, again won the
presidency, but by this time he had become a servant for the U.S. political and economic agenda
in Haiti. For example, Préval banned Fanmi Lavalas from running in elections and refused
to sign a bill passed in the parliament to raise the minimum wage. 23 In fact, the
real power was no longer in the hands of the Haitian government. The U.S.- backed UN occupation
rules the country in colonial style, dictating policy to the Haitian government.
The occupation has completely failed to develop the country. It has done nothing to improve
living conditions for Haitians, to rebuild the country's ravaged infrastructure, or to reforest
the countryside. Before the earthquake, two rounds of natural disasters swept Haiti and exposed
the U.S. and UN's callous neglect of the country. Hurricanes hit in 2004 and 2008, killing
thousands. 24 The pattern of impoverishment, deforestation, and degradation of the
country's infrastructure, which has accelerated in recent years, has rendered natural disasters
in Haiti far more devastating than anywhere else. In what is perhaps the worst exposure of the
result of U.S. and UN refusal to improve conditions in Haiti, the food crisis in Haiti spiraled
out of control on their watch. Even before the food crisis in 2008, the urban poor were reduced
to eating mud cakes flavored with salt as a regular meal. When capitalists speculated on the
international food market, they drove up the prices of Haiti's imported staples, especially
rice. In response Haitians rioted, only to be repressed by the UN troops. 25
Imposing a new plan of death on Haiti
During the UN occupation, the U.S. imposed the same neoliberal economic plan on Haiti in the
interests of multinational capital and the Haitian ruling class. UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon appointed Bill Clinton as special envoy to Haiti in 2009 and tasked him with
revitalizing the country's economy. Clinton developed a new version of the plan of death along
with Oxford economics professor and former research director for the World Bank, Paul Collier.
Collier outlined their program in his paper, "Haiti: From natural catastrophe to economic
security." 26 It advocated investment in the tourist industry, redevelopment of the
sweatshop industry in cities, export-oriented mango plantations in the countryside, and
construction of infrastructure to service that development.
As Polly Pattullo documents in Last Resorts: The Cost of Tourism in the Caribbean ,
the tourist industry is largely controlled by U.S. multinational corporations. She quotes one
critic of the tourist industry who argues, "When a third world economy uses tourism as a
development strategy, it becomes enmeshed in a global system over which it has little control.
The international tourism industry is a product of metropolitan capitalist enterprise. The
superior entrepreneurial skills, resources and commercial power of metropolitan companies
enable them to dominate many third world tourist destinations." 27
Clinton has orchestrated a plan for turning the north of Haiti into a tourist playground, as
far away as possible from the teeming slums of Port-au-Prince. He lured Royal Caribbean Cruise
Lines into investing $55 million to build a pier along the coastline of Labadee, which it has
leased until 2050. From there, Haiti's tourist industry hopes to lead expeditions to the
mountaintop fortress Citadelle and the Palace of Sans-Souci, both built by Henri Christophe,
one of the leaders of Haiti's slave revolution. 28
For the cities, Collier promotes sweatshop development. Without a hint of shame, he notes,
"Due to its poverty and relatively unregulated labor market, Haiti has labor costs that are
fully competitive with China, which is the global benchmark. Haitian labor is not only cheap it
is of good quality. Indeed, because the garments industry used to be much larger than it is
currently, there is a substantial pool of experienced labor." 29 Given the abolition
of tariffs on many Haitian exports to the U.S., Haiti is primed, according to Collier, for a
new sweatshop boom.
But this is no sustainable development plan in the interests of Haitian workers. At best,
Collier promises 150,000 or so jobs. As anthropologist Mark Shuller argues, "subcontracted,
low-wage factory work does not contribute much to the economy besides jobs. Being exempt from
taxes, it does not contribute to the financing of Haiti's social services." 30
Moreover these jobs themselves do not even pay enough to support life -- they pay for transport
and lunch at about $1.60 a day. The U.S. will want to keep these wages low, since that is the
profitable basis for the investment.
For the peasant majority in the country, Clinton and Collier advocate the construction of
vast new mango plantations. According to them, such new plantations will both create an export
crop and aid the reforestation of the country. While it may create jobs for poor peasants, such
plantations will not rebuild the agricultural infrastructure of the country so that it can
return to the self-sufficient food system it had before the 1980s. As TransAfrica founder
Randall Robinson told Democracy Now! , "That isn't the kind of investment that Haiti
needs. It needs capital investment. It needs investment so that it can be self-sufficient. It
needs investment so that it can feed itself." 31 Such self-sufficiency runs against
the grain of U.S. policy to control the international food market with its subsidized
crops.
Collier finally argues for investment in infrastructure -- airports, seaports, and roads --
not so much to meet people's needs as to service these new investments in tourism, sweatshops,
and plantations. As a result, Collier's plan will actually increase infrastructural inequities;
businesses will get what they need to export their products, while the Haitian masses'
infrastructural needs, like navigable roads, will be left unaddressed. Even worse, Collier
advocates increased privatization of Haiti's infrastructure, especially the port and the
electrical system.
It is not incidental that Collier is also the author of The Bottom Billion ,
32 a book that calls for outside intervention by wealthy nations such as the United
States into what he calls "post-conflict" poor nations, combining targeted aid and economic
restructuring under long-term military occupation. In a modern recasting of the old colonialist
"civilizing mission," this is meant to lift these nations out of a vicious cycle of violence
and poverty.
On his whirlwind tour of the country in 2009, Bill Clinton promised investors that Haiti was
open for business with Aristide and Lavalas out of the way and the U.S. and UN in effective
control of the country. "Your political risk in Haiti" he declared at a press conference "is
lower than it has ever been in my lifetime." 33
Failing to deliver relief to victims
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the press has cooperated with the Obama administration in
giving the impression that the U.S. military has been busy delivering aid to desperate
Haitians. The facts don't bear this out. To begin with, Obama's promise of $100 million in aid
to the country is a pittance -- less than the winnings of a Kentucky couple in a recent
Powerball lottery. 34 It is a paltry amount compared to the hundreds of billions
that the U.S. shelled out to American banks and the $3 trillion the U.S. will have expended on
the Iraq War alone.
There were early warning signs that this humanitarian mission was not all it was cracked up
to be. Obama's decision to appoint former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to oversee
the collection of donations through the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund displays incredible callousness
toward the Haitian masses. Clinton imposed the plan of death on Lavalas. Bush let New Orleans
get washed out to sea and backed the 2004 coup that overthrew Aristide. Appointing Bush is like
putting Nero in charge of the fire department.
Aid was slow to arrive, and what did turn up was inadequate. Amid a crisis where the first
forty-eight hours are decisive in saving people's lives, the U.S. and UN failed to come
anywhere near addressing the needs of the 3 million people impacted by the earthquake. Every
minute that aid was delayed meant more people died from starvation, dehydration, injury, and
disease. It also meant that the hospitals and doctors desperately trying to help the victims
were left stranded without the basics to heal the injured.
As Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, speaking from Port-au-Prince's main hospital just as
heavily-armed U.S. troops were arriving, told Democracy Now! ,
In terms of supplies, in terms of surgeons, in terms of aid relief, the response has been
incredibly slow. There are teams of surgeons that have been sent to places that were, quote,
"more secure," that have ten or twenty doctors and ten patients. We have a thousand people on
this campus that are triaged and ready for surgery, but we only have four working ORs without
anesthesia and without pain medications. And we're still struggling to get ourselves up to
twenty-four-hour care. 35
In the week after the quake, Partners in Health estimated as many as 20,000 Haitians were
dying daily from lack of surgery. 36
The U.S. and UN used all sorts of technical alibis to justify the delay in meeting people's
needs. They complained that the damage done to Haiti's airport, seaport, and roads impeded
delivery of doctors, nurses, food, water, and rescue teams. Such claims are unconvincing.
Clearly the means exist to deliver aid quickly to a country only 700 miles away from Miami,
Florida, and only 156 miles from a fully functional international airport in the Dominican
Republic. Other countries had no difficulty sending planes of aid and volunteers. China, from
half way around the world, got a plane of aid to Haiti earlier than the United States. Iceland
sent a rescue team within forty-eight hours of the quake. Cuba sent dozens of doctors to join
the several hundred doctors already working the country.
This failure of the U.S. to respond produced a chorus of denunciations from relief experts.
One official from the Italian government, Guido Bertolaso, who was acclaimed for his successful
handling of the April 2009 earthquake in Italy, denounced the U.S. effort as a "pathetic
failure." He declared, "The Americans are extraordinary but when you are facing a situation in
chaos they tend to confuse military intervention with emergency aid, which cannot be entrusted
to armed forces. It's truly a powerful show of force but it's completely out of touch with
reality." 37
Guns over aid
As with Katrina, Obama prioritized the deployment of the U.S. military over provision of aid.
He sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Haiti right away to get President Préval
to secure emergency powers. "The decree would give the government an enormous amount of
authority, which in practice they would delegate to us," she stated. 38 The U.S. has
taken effective control of Haiti. It has secured control of the airport and seaport and
deployed 20,000 U.S. troops to bolster the enlarged UN force of 12,500 already in the country.
Thus, for the fourth time since 1915, Haiti is under a U.S. occupation.
How did the U.S. justify the fact that six days into the relief effort only a trickle of aid
had gotten through to those who needed it? The U.S. government claimed that aid could not be
delivered properly until security was first established. When asked why the U.S. hadn't used
its C-130 transport planes to drop supplies in Port-au-Prince, Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates said, "Air drops will simply lead to riots." 39 However, precisely the
opposite is the case; people will riot because they lack food and water.
In lockstep, the corporate media's coverage shifted from its initial sympathy with victims
of the disaster to churning out scare stories. "Marauding looters emptied wrecked shops and
tens of thousands of survivors waited desperately for food and medical care," Reuters claimed.
"Hundreds of scavengers and looters swarmed over wrecked stores in downtown Port-au-Prince,
seizing goods and fighting among themselves." 40
These scare stories in turn became an excuse for not delivering aid. Writer Nelson Valdes
reported,
The United Nations and the U.S. authorities on the ground are telling those who directly
want to deliver help not to do so because they might be attacked by "hungry mobs." Two cargo
planes from Doctors Without Borders have been forced to land in the Dominican Republic
because the shipments have to be accompanied within Port-au-Prince by U.S. military escorts,
according to the U.S. command. 41
The scare stories led relief workers and military personnel to treat Haitians in a
dehumanizing fashion. Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman reported an incident where an aid
helicopter refused to distribute food on the ground and instead dropped it on people. An
angry Haitian compared the incident to "throwing bones to dogs." 42
Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs), because of their close relation with the U.S.,
have adopted a paranoid obsession with security to the detriment of providing relief. Ecologist
and human rights activist Sasha Kramer reported on Counterpunch,
One friend showed me the map used by all of the larger NGOs where Port-au-Prince is
divided into security zones, yellow, orange, red. Red zones are restricted, in the orange
zones all of the car windows must be rolled up and they cannot be visited past certain times
of the day. Even in the yellow zone aid workers are often not permitted to walk through the
streets and spend much of their time riding through the city from one office to another in
organizational vehicles. The creation of these security zones has been like the building of a
wall, a wall reinforced by language barriers and fear rather than iron rods, a wall that,
unlike many of the buildings in Port-au-Prince, did not crumble during the earthquake. Fear,
much like violence, is self-perpetuating. When aid workers enter communities radiating fear
it is offensive, the perceived disinterest in communicating with the poor majority is
offensive, driving through impoverished communities with windows rolled up and armed security
guards is offensive . Despite the good intentions of the many aid workers swarming around the
UN base, much of the aid coming through the larger organizations is still blocked in storage,
waiting for the required UN and U.S. military escorts that are seen as essential for
distribution, meanwhile people in the camps are suffering and their tolerance is waning.
43
Yet this disastrous "beware of the Haitian people" line is simply not borne out by reports
coming from Haiti. "There are no security issues," argues Dr. Lyon:
I've been with my Haitian colleagues. I'm staying at a friend's house in Port-au-Prince.
We're working for the Ministry of Public Health for the direction of this hospital as
volunteers. But I'm living and moving with friends. We've been circulating throughout the
city until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning every night, evacuating patients, moving materials.
There's no UN guards. There's no U.S. military presence. There's no Haitian police presence.
And there's also no violence. There is no insecurity. 44
As the real nature of the U.S. operation became clear, an array of forces criticized the
U.S. for imposing an occupation, not supplying relief. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez
rightly declared on his weekly television show, "Marines armed as if they were going to war.
There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals --
that's what the United States should send. They are occupying Haiti undercover."
45
Impeding relief
The U.S. occupation actually prevented relief efforts. Once the U.S. was in charge of the
airport it prioritized military flights over relief flights. Jarry Emmanuel, the air logistics
officer for the World Food Program, complained, "There are 200 flights going in and out every
day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti. But most of those flights are for
the United States military. Their priorities are to secure the country." 46
Hillary Clinton herself brought relief missions to a halt when she flew into Port-au-Prince
to seize emergency powers from Préval. The U.S. military shut the airport down for three
hours, preventing the desperately needed delivery of aid. Outraged, Alain Joyandet, the French
Cooperation Minister, called on the UN to investigate America's dominant role in the relief
effort and protested: "This is about helping Haiti, not occupying it." 47
The chorus of complaints further escalated not only from governments but also from aid
organizations. Richard Seymour reports that,
Since the arrival of the troops, however, several aid missions have been prevented from
arriving at the airport in Port-au-Prince that the U.S. has commandeered. France and the
Caribbean Community have both made their complaints public, as has Médecins Sans
Frontières [MSF] on five separate occasions. UN World Food Program flights were also
turned away on two consecutive days. Benoit Leduc, MSF's operations manager in
Port-au-Prince, complained that U.S. military flights were being prioritized over aid
flights. 48
The U.S. military has even turned back masses of health care workers who wanted to volunteer
to provide needed medical care in Haiti. The National Nurses Union organized an emergency
conference call to mobilize thousands of nurses to go to Haiti. More than 1,800 nurses called
in and they proceeded to recruit 11,000 others to the project. Initially the U.S. military said
that it would accept them, but then, inexplicably, they reversed themselves and told them that
the U.S. had plenty of military personnel to address the health care disaster in Haiti. Nothing
could be further from the truth. 49
The U.S. military, Florida's state government, and the Obama administration also colluded in
one of the worst examples of the callous treatment of Haitian victims. They refused to allow
landing of planes loaded with injured people in desperate need of medical treatment. The Obama
administration and Florida's governor were locked in a battle over who would pay for the cost
of the medical care. So for five days, the U.S. let injured people suffer in Haiti because
budget battles mattered more than people's lives. 50
Al Jazeera captured the nature of the U.S. and UN military occupation in a January
17 report:
Most Haitians here have seen little humanitarian aid so far. What they have seen is guns,
and lots of them. Armored personnel carriers cruise the streets. UN soldiers aren't here to
help pull people out of the rubble. They're here, they say, to enforce the law. This is what
much of the UN presence actually looks like on the streets of Port-au-Prince: men in uniform,
racing around in vehicles, carrying guns. At the entrance to the city's airport where most of
the aid is coming in, there is anger and frustration. Much-needed supplies of water and food
are inside, and Haitians are locked out. "These weapons they bring," [an unidentified Haitian
says], "they are instruments of death. We don't want them; we don't need them. We are a
traumatized people. What we want from the international community is technical help. Action,
not words." 51
Problems with the NGOs
Haiti has approximately 10,000 NGOs operating within its borders, one of the highest numbers
per capita in the world. The international NGOs are unaccountable to either the Haitian state
or Haitian population. So the aid funneled through them further weakens what little hold
Haitians have on their own society. These NGOs have taken deep hold in Haiti at the very same
time that the conditions in the country have gone from bad to apocalyptic.
Amid this crisis, some of the NGOs and their employees have tried valiantly to fill the
vacuum left by the U.S. and UN. But most of them did not have real forces inside the country to
respond to the disaster. The Red Cross, for example, only had 15 employees on the ground, but
has received the bulk of donated money -- more than $200 million -- from people around the
world. Add to this the reluctance of the big NGOs to act without "security," as mentioned
above.
Moreover, as the British medical journal The Lancet argues, many of the international NGOs
are engaged in a fierce battle for funds and have allowed that competition to distort their
provision of food, water, medical aid, and services amidst the crisis. After calling aid an
"industry in its own right," the Lancet noted that NGOs are
jostling for position, each claiming that they are doing the most for earthquake
survivors. Some agencies even claim that they are "spearheading" the relief effort. In fact,
as we only too clearly see, the situation in Haiti is chaotic, devastating, and anything but
coordinated. Polluted by the internal power politics and the unsavory characteristics seen in
many big corporations, large aid agencies can be obsessed with raising money through their
own appeal efforts. Media coverage as an end in itself is too often an aim of their
activities. Marketing and branding have too high a profile. Perhaps worst of all, relief
efforts in the field are sometimes competitive with little collaboration between agencies,
including smaller, grass-roots charities that may have better networks in affected countries
and so are well placed to immediately implement emergency relief. 52
Repatriating and jailing refugees
As Haitians' needs continued unmet, the U.S. occupation devolved into policing the disaster,
including preventing the flight of refugees from Haiti. It is true that activists finally
compelled Obama to grant Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Obama's decision delayed
the deportation of 30,000 Haitians and will make TPS available to 100,000 to 200,000 more.
These provisions, however, have strict limitations.
First of all, the U.S. plans to exclude victims of the earthquake, offering TPS only to
those who arrived in the U.S. without legal documents before January 12. Those who quality must
prove they are indigent and at the very same time pay $470 in application fees. 53
Those Haitians who are granted TPS will only be allowed to stay in the U.S. for eighteen months
before they must return to Haiti. If they do qualify for the program they will become known to
the authorities and thus make themselves more vulnerable to repatriation. Moreover, given the
scale of destruction in Port-au-Prince, there is no way that the city or country will be in
better condition in a year and a half. So if the U.S. enforces this eighteen-month limitation,
it will return Haitians to an ongoing disaster area.
To enforce the bar on Haitians coming to the U.S., a flotilla of military vessels has
surrounded the country. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tried to spin this in
humanitarian terms. "At this moment of tragedy in Haiti," she lectured, "it is tempting for
people suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake to seek refuge elsewhere, but attempting to
leave Haiti now will only bring more hardship to the Haitian people and nation." 54
In a far more blunt statement of the actual policy, Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Chris
O'Neil, in charge of Operation Vigilant Sentry declared, "The goal is to interdict them at sea
and repatriate them." 55
The U.S. made sure to broadcast this threat to Haitians. A U.S. Air Force transport plane
spends hours in the air above Haiti every day, not ferrying food and water, but broadcasting a
radio statement in Creole from Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph. "I'll be honest
with you," Joseph says, according to a transcript on the State Department's Web site. "If you
think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that's not at all the
case. And they will intercept you right on the water, and send you back home where you came
from." 56
To prepare for the eventuality that some Haitians may get through the military cordon around
Haiti, Obama, like Bush and Clinton before him, has prepared jail space to incarcerate refugees
at Krome Detention Center in Florida and at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo, Cuba.
57
Asserting who's boss in Latin America
Days after the quake, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation posted an article
detailing what it considered should be Washington's aims in occupying Haiti. The U.S. military
presence, they argued, in addition to preventing "any large scale movements by Haitians to take
to the sea to try to enter the U.S. illegally," also "offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's
long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United
States in the region." At the same time, it argues, the U.S. military presence could "interrupt
the nightly flights of cocaine to Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast
and counter the ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to destabilize the
island of Hispaniola." There is no evidence of Venezuelan cocaine flights or efforts to
"destabilize" Haiti, but the point is clear: The U.S. sees Haiti as part of an effort to assert
more control over the region and contain "unfriendly" regimes. 58
The military response to Haiti's crisis cannot be separated from Washington's regional
interests. As Greg Gandin writes in the Nation ,
In recent years, Washington has experienced a fast erosion of its influence in South
America, driven by the rise of Brazil, the region's left turn, the growing influence of China
and Venezuela's use of oil revenue to promote a multipolar diplomacy. Broad social movements
have challenged efforts by US- and Canadian-based companies to expand extractive industries
like mining, biofuels, petroleum and logging. 59
Faced with such regional and international competition, the U.S. under Bush and now Obama is
angling to launch a counteroffensive. The U.S. tried to topple Chávez in 2002, it
succeeded in overthrowing Aristide in 2004, and last year backed the coup against President
Zelaya in Honduras. As Grandin reports, the U.S. is actively promoting the right-wing
opposition to the various reform socialist governments in the region. It is backing up this
political initiative with an expansion of its military bases in the region, particularly in
Colombia. "In late October," Grandin writes, "the United States and Colombia signed an
agreement granting the Pentagon use of seven military bases, along with an unlimited number of
as yet unspecified 'facilities and locations.' They add to Washington's already considerable
military presence in Colombia, as well as Central America and the Caribbean." 60
Haiti is thus a stepping-stone for further U.S. interventions in the region.
"Shock doctrine" for Haiti
For Haiti itself, the U.S. is preparing to impose its old neoliberal plan at gunpoint. In
The Shock Doctrine , Naomi Klein documents how the U.S. and other imperial powers take
advantage of natural and economic disasters to impose free-market plans for the benefit of the
American and native capitalists. The U.S., other powers, the IMF, and World Bank had their
shock doctrine for Haiti immediately on hand. Hillary Clinton declared, "We have a plan. It was
a legitimate plan, it was done in conjunction with other international donors, with the United
Nations." 61 This is the Collier Plan, the same old plan of sweatshops, plantations,
and tourism.
The U.S., a few other imperial powers, a few lesser countries, and the UN convened a meeting
on January 26 in Montreal to profess their concern and promises to aid Haiti. The fourteen
so-called "Friends of Haiti" made sure to include the Haitian prime minister, Jean-Max
Bellerive, to at least give the illusion of respect for the country's sovereignty. But outside
a protest organized by Haiti Action Montreal opposed the meeting with signs demanding "medical
relief not guns," "grants not loans," and "reconstruction for people not profit."
In the Guardian , Gary Younge criticized the summit for failing to produce any
solutions to the crisis in Haiti. "Even as corpses remained under the earthquake's rubble," he
wrote, "and the government operated out of a police station, the assembled 'friends' would not
commit to canceling Haiti's $1 billion debt. Instead they agreed to a 10-year plan with no
details, and a commitment to meet again -- when the bodies have been buried along with coverage
of the country -- sometime in the future." 62
By contrast, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and his Latin American and Caribbean allies
assembled in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) announced their opposition to
America's shock doctrine. They denounced Washington's neoliberal plans, called for relief not
troops and for the cancellation of Haiti's debt. Venezuela itself immediately cancelled Haiti's
debt and began sending shiploads of relief offering over $100 million in humanitarian aid with
no strings attached. 63
No such humanitarian motives animate the U.S., its capitalist corporations, and the
international financial institutions. These vultures began circling above Haiti almost
immediately. The Street, an investment Web site, published an article misleadingly entitled,
"An opportunity to heal Haiti," that lays out how U.S. corporations can cash in on the
catastrophe. "Here are some companies," they write, "that could potentially benefit: General
Electric (GE), Caterpillar (CAT), Deere (DE), Fluor (FLR), Jacobs Engineering (JEC)."
64 The Rand Corporation's James Dobbins wrote in the New York Times, "This disaster
is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms." 65
Over the last few years, the U.S. has been trying to give a facelift to the international
financial institution that it uses to impose its plans in Haiti. As Jim Lobe reports,
Last June, 1.2 billion dollars in Haiti's external debt, including that owed to the
Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB), was cancelled after the Préval government completed a
three-year Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program. Over half of that debt had been
incurred by Haiti's dictatorships, notably the Duvalier dynasty that ruled the country from
1957 to 1986. But the cancellation covered debt incurred by Haiti only through 2004. In the
last five years, the country has received new loans -- some of them to help it recover from
the floods and other hurricane damage -- totaling another 1.05 billion dollars.
66
In other words, the U.S. and the financial institutions exchanged the old debts for new
so-called "legitimate loans," trapping Haiti yet again in debt. Eric Toussaint and Sophie
Perchellet call this "a typical odious debt-laundering maneuver." 67
In the wake of the crisis, the bankers were at Haiti's door yet again, ready, incredibly, to
loan Haiti money with the usual conditions. The IMF offered Haiti a new loan of $100 million
with the usual strings attached. As the Nation 's Richard Kim writes,
The new loan was made through the IMF's extended credit facility, to which Haiti already
has $165 million in debt. Debt relief activists tell me that these loans came with
conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public
employees except those making minimum wage, and keeping inflation low. They say that the new
loans would impose these same conditions. In other words, in the face of this latest tragedy,
the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms.
68
Debt cancellation activists like Jubilee pushed back against the IMF and scored a victory
over it. "On Jan. 21," Lobe reports,
the World Bank announced a waiver of Haiti's pending debt payment for five years and said
it would explore ways that the remaining debt could be cancelled. The IDB [Inter-American
Development Bank] has said it is engaged in a similar effort and will present alternatives
for reducing or canceling the debt to its board of governors. On Jan. 27, the IMF, which
lacks the authority to provide outright grants, announced that it would give Haiti a 102
million-dollar loan at zero-percent interest and that would not be subject to any of the
Fund's usual performance conditions. 69
The pressure even forced the U.S. to call for all new monies extended to Haiti to be in the
form of grants, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for debt relief in the run
up to the G-7 conference in February. 70
While activists can claim these concessions by the U.S. and the international financial
institutions as victories that open up the possibility for even more progress in demanding full
cancellation of Haiti's debt and all third world debt, no one should look at this situation
through rose-colored glasses. The U.S. is using this promise -- and it is just a promise at
this point -- to cover up its determination to implement the Collier Plan for tourism,
sweatshops, and mango plantations to exploit Haiti's desperately poor workers and peasants. In
fact, the U.S. does not need to use the leverage of debt to force Haiti to agree to the plan;
it has secured colonial rule over the country and can impose its plans directly at
gunpoint.
Resistance and solidarity
The left has a responsibility to cut through the propaganda of the Obama administration and the
mainstream media. The U.S. is not engaged in humanitarian relief, but old-fashioned imperialism
in Haiti. Humanitarianism has long been one of the means the U.S. uses to provide a cover story
for its military actions abroad. But whether it was saving the Cuban people from Spanish
brutality, sending the marines into Mogadishu in 1993 to feed starving Somalis, or overthrowing
the Taliban to "liberate women," the real aims and practical results of these interventions
diverged radically from their alleged noble intentions.
Humanitarian military intervention was heavily promoted in the 1990s during the latter part
of the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration -- in particular during the
wars in the former Yugoslavia. Its purpose was to reestablish the legitimacy of U.S. military
intervention in the wake of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, as part of a policy intended to erase
what was known as the "Vietnam syndrome." It is being revived again in the wake of the
unpopularity of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and weariness toward the "war on
terror," for similar reasons. The U.S. hopes that it can re-legitimize its military as a force
for good so that it can lay the groundwork for more U.S. interventions in the region and around
the world.
Even if the U.S. gets away with its new plans for Haiti, it will inevitably breed resistance
in the population and throughout the region where through bitter experience workers and
peasants have learned to oppose U.S. designs on their countries. In Haiti, workers and peasants
will find their way to organize in the countryside on the plantations, in the sweatshops, and
in the shantytowns.
Already Haitian organizations have come out against the U.S. agenda. A statement issued on
January 27 from the Coordinating Committee of Progressive Organizations announced:
We must declare our anger and indignation at the exploitation of the situation in Haiti to
justify a new invasion by 20,000 U.S. Marines. We condemn what threatens to become a new
military occupation by U.S. troops, the third in our history. It is clearly part of a
strategy to remilitarize the Caribbean Basin in the context of the imperialist response to
the growing rebellion of the peoples of our continent against neo-liberal globalization. And
it exists also within a framework of pre-emptive warfare designed to confront the eventual
social explosion of a people crushed by poverty and facing despair. We condemn the model
imposed by the U.S. government and the military response to a tragic humanitarian crisis. The
occupation of the Toussaint L'Ouverture international airport and other elements of the
national infrastructure have deprived the Haitian people of part of the contribution made by
Caricom, by Venezuela, and by some European countries. We condemn this conduct, and refuse
absolutely to allow our country to become another military base. 71
The Haitian left has thus already started building opposition to the U.S. occupation and the
Collier Plan. Every year since the U.S. coup in 2004, activists have marched on February 28 in
Port-au-Prince against the UN occupation and to demand the end of Aristide's exile. Workers'
organizations just last year protested in the thousands for an increase in the minimum wage
that Préval opposed. Lavalas activists had protested before the earthquake against their
exclusion from the scheduled parliamentary elections. Now amid crisis and occupation,
Préval, who has proved to be a puppet for the U.S. agenda, thus losing what little
political support he had, has cancelled those elections. No doubt Préval's behavior will
provoke political opposition from below against his government's collaboration with the United
States.
Outside Haiti, the left must build solidarity with that struggle and make several demands on
the Obama administration. First, Obama must immediately end the military occupation of Haiti,
and instead flood the country with doctors, nurses, food, water, and construction machinery.
Second, the U.S. must also stop its enforcement of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's exile and the ban
on his party, Fanmi Lavalas, from participating in elections. Haitians, not the U.S., should
have the right to determine their government.
Third, the left must demand that the U.S., other countries, and international financial
institutions cancel Haiti's debt, so that the aid money headed to Haiti will go to food and
reconstruction, not debt repayment. More than that -- France, the U.S., and Canada, the three
countries that have most interfered with Haiti's sovereignty -- should pay reparations for the
damage they have done. France can start by repaying the $21 billion dollars that it extracted
from Haiti from 1824 to 1947. Fourth, leftists must agitate for Obama to indefinitely extend
Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in the U.S. -- and open the borders to any Haitians who
flee the country. Finally, the left must direct all its funds to Haitian grass-roots
organizations to provide relief and help rebuild resistance to the U.S. plan for Haiti.
Only through agitating for these demands can we stop the U.S. from imposing at gunpoint its
shock doctrine for Haiti. In this struggle, the left must educate wider and wider layers of
people, already suspicious of U.S. motives after Hurricane Katrina, and the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, that the U.S. state never engages in military actions for humanitarian
motives. As the great American revolutionary journalist John Reed declared, "Uncle Sam never
gives anybody something for nothing. He comes along with a sack stuffed with hay in one hand
and a whip in the other. Anyone who accepts Uncle Sam's promises at their face value will find
that they must be paid for in sweat and blood." 72
"President Obama on U.S. rescue efforts in Haiti, www.America.gov .
Bill Quigley, "Haiti: still starving 23 days later," Huffington Post, posted
February 4, 2010.
Soumitra Eachempati, Dean Lorich, and David Helfet, "Haiti: Obama's Katrina," Wall
Street Journal , January 26, 2010.
Rich Schapiro, "Rev. Pat Robertson says ancient Haitians' 'pact with the devil' caused
earthquake," New York Daily News , January 13, 2010.
David Brooks, "The underlying tragedy," New York Times , January 14, 2010.
For an overview of the French colony and the slave revolution see Ashley Smith, "The
Black Jacobins," International Socialist Review (ISR) 63, January–February
2009.
Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politicsw of
Containment (New York: Verso Books, 2007), 12.
Quoted in Sidney Lens, The Forging of the American Empire (Chicago: Haymarket
Books, 2003), 270.
For an overview of the history of U.S. imperialism in Haiti see Helen Scott, "Haiti under
siege," ISR 35, May-June 2004.
Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994),
108.
Alex Dupuy, Haiti in the New World Order (New York: Westview Press, 1996),
37.
For an analysis of Baby Doc's neoliberal plans see chapter 2 of Alex Dupuy, The
Prophet and the Power (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
Eric Toussaint and Sophie Perchellet, "Debt is Haiti's real curse," Socialist
Worker , January 20, 2010.
Regan Boychuck, "The vultures circle Haiti at every opportunity, natural or man-made,"
Znet, February 3, 2010.
Dupuy, Haiti in the New World Order , 31.
Quoted in Amy Wilentz, The Rainy Season (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989),
137.
Quoted in Ashley Smith, "The new occupation of Haiti: Aristide's rise and fall,"
ISR 35, May–June, 2004.
For an analysis of Lavalas after Aristide's restoration see chapter 5 of Robert Fatton,
Haiti's Predatory Republic (Boulder: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2002).
For a perhaps overly generous portrait of Aristide in his second term see chapters 6 and
7 of Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood .
Clara James, "Haiti free trade zone," Dollars and Sense , November/December
2002.
"... The new weapons for Ukraine coincides with an increase in US troop deployments in the Baltic region on Russia's border, prompting Russia to accuse the United States of violating the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, and position nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in response. ..."
One consequence of the Trump-Russia fixation is the overshadowing of the far-right agenda
that Trump and his Republican allies are carrying out, including, inexorably, policies that
undermine the narrative of Trump-Russian collusion. But as that narrative is also used as a
cudgel against Trump's presidency, it is worth asking if some of those policies are now even a
direct result.
In December, Trump
authorized the sale of new weapons to Ukraine for its fight against Russian-backed
separatists. President Obama had rejected the arms shipments, "fearing that it would only
escalate the bloodshed," as The New York Times noted in 2015. Trump had also opposed such a move during the
campaign, but was swayed by lobbying from
advisers and congressional neoconservatives
. "Overall,"
observed Andrew Weiss , a Russia expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, "I see this discussion [on Trump-Russia] as fitting within a broader effort by people
within the national security bureaucracy to box Trump in on Ukraine."
The new weapons for Ukraine coincides with an increase in US troop deployments in the
Baltic region on Russia's border, prompting Russia to accuse the United States of violating the
1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, and position nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in
response.
Brand attracted interest because of her potential to assume a key role in the Trump-Russia
investigation. The official overseeing the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation,
the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, has been repeatedly criticized by Trump. If
Rosenstein had been fired or quit, oversight would have fallen to Brand. That job would now
fall to the solicitor general, Noel Francisco.
"She felt this was an opportunity she couldn't turn down," her friend and former colleague
Jamie Gorelick said. Walmart sought Brand to be head of global corporate governance at the
retail giant, a position Gorelick said has legal and policy responsibilities that will cater
to her strengths.
"It really seems to have her name on it," Gorelick said.
"... On Strategy : A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, ..."
"... In his own work, Summers marginalized all Vietnamese actors (as would so many later military historians), failed to adequately deal with the potential consequences, nuclear or otherwise, of the sorts of escalation he advocated, and didn't even bother to ask whether Vietnam was a core national security interest of the United States. ..."
"... A more sophisticated Clausewitzian analysis came from current National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in a highly acclaimed 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty ..."
"... McMaster is a genuine scholar and a gifted writer, but he still suggested that the Joint Chiefs should have advocated for a more aggressive offensive strategy -- a full ground invasion of the North or unrelenting carpet-bombing of that country. In this sense, he was just another "go-big" Clausewitzian who, as historian Ronald Spector pointed out recently, ignored Vietnamese views and failed to acknowledge -- an observation of historian Edward Miller -- that "the Vietnam War was a Vietnamese war." ..."
"... The Army and Vietnam ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... A Better War : The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ..."
"... Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... David Petraeus and current Secretary of Defense James Mattis, co-authors in 2006 of FM 3-24, the first ( New York Times ..."
"... On Strategy ..."
"... Dereliction of Duty ..."
"... The Army and Vietnam ..."
"... Most of the generals leading the war on terror just missed service in the Vietnam War. They graduated from various colleges or West Point in the years immediately following the withdrawal of most U.S. ground troops or thereafter: Petraeus in 1974 , future Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal in 1976 , and present National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in 1984 . Secretary of Defense Mattis finished ROTC and graduated from Central Washington University in 1971 , while Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly enlisted at the tail end of the Vietnam War, receiving his commission in 1976 . ..."
"... Petraeus, Mattis, McMaster, and the others entered service when military prestige had reached a nadir or was just rebounding. And those reading lists taught the young officers where to lay the blame for that -- on civilians in Washington (or in the nation's streets) or on a military high command too weak to assert its authority effectively. They would serve in Vietnam's shadow, the shadow of defeat, and the conclusions they would draw from it would only lead to twenty-first-century disasters ..."
"... Meanwhile, President Trump's hearts-and-minds faction consists of officers who have spent three administrations expanding COIN-influenced missions to approximately 70% of the world's nations. Furthermore, they've recently fought for and been granted a new "mini-surge" in Afghanistan intended to -- in disturbingly Vietnam-esque language -- "break the deadlock ," "reverse the decline," and "end the stalemate " there. Never mind that neither 100,000 U.S. troops (when I was there in 2011) nor 16 full years of combat could, in the term of the trade, "stabilize" Afghanistan. The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced Trump that -- despite his original instincts -- 4,000 or 5,000 (or 6,000 or 7,000) more troops (and yet more drones , planes , and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents tragedy bordering on farce. ..."
"... The hearts and minders and Clausewitzians atop the military establishment since 9/11 are never likely to stop citing their versions of the Vietnam War as the key to victory today; that is, they will never stop focusing on a war that was always unwinnable and never worth fighting. None of today's acclaimed military personalities seems willing to consider that Washington couldn't have won in Vietnam because, as former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak (who flew 269 combat missions over that country) noted in the recent Ken Burns documentary series, "we were fighting on the wrong side." ..."
"... Today's leaders don't even pretend that the post-9/11 wars will ever end. In an interview last June, Petraeus -- still considered a sagacious guru of the Defense establishment -- disturbingly described the Afghan conflict as " generational ." ..."
"... Vietnam lost in the end. Its greedy corrupt elites are now puppets of US. They allow open prostitution in Ho Chi Minh city. They allow Vietnamese women to be a bunch of hookers again. ..."
"... "America tends to gain from commerce what it thinks it will get by warfare. Not so much the other way around" Rather like 20th century Germany, don't you think? ..."
"... The Vietnam war killed the draft. The draft is involuntary servitude, slavery in a sense. For ordinary Americans this was the only positive thing to come from the war. ..."
"... Ultimately, the victory of WW2 due to sheer weight of industrial productivity ramp and hence massive output of planes, tanks, submarines, etc. made defense a large part of the US economy. Since that time, too many entrenched interests just never want the military to downsize. Hence, the US has to keep invented new demand for a product that otherwise would not have such demand, but keeps some major entrenched interests powerful. ..."
"... The BIGGEST lesson to come out of the illegal and immoral War against Vietnam is that the draft was impeding the MIC's effort to sell Americans on the idea of supporting endless war. ..."
"... The same generals who let 911 happen and started the Iraq war still run the show. All of them should have faced a firing squad for that, but instead, the grossly incompetent General Kelly runs the White House and the grossly incompetent Mattis runs the military. ..."
"... The warhawk imperialists – some of them Clausewtizians and most COINdinistas – rule everything. No matter how many lives are lost, no matter how much money is wasted, they demand we remain on the same path of playing world hegemon. George Washington fought the British Empire for our freedom, so our subsequent leaders, starting most importantly with Lincoln, could remake the country into the British Empire 2.0. ..."
"... No; it's psychotic, psychopathic mayhem and mass-murder. Lemma: At any crime-scene, there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories, apologists and/or 'idle' bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a) restrain malefactors and where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in active resistance to the crime attract proportional guilt. Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes him/herself an accessory, like all residents in the 'illegitimate entity' and/or the puppet executives, manufacturers of the means and their enablers = the whole MIC[*] plus all their dependents, say. ..."
"... The US rogue regime = US-M/I/C/4a†-plex, with dog-wagging-tail, its illegitimate sprog the Zionist/Israeli rogue regime + Js = I/J/Z-plex, all components rife with corruption. ..."
"... Save the BS for your fellow geezer drunks at the VFW lounge. Vietnam featured a complete collapse of the conscripted US military, rampant drug use, fragging, insubordination, faked injuries, disintegration of the chain of command, mass murder of civilians, and finally TOTAL DEFEAT after turning tail and running following the negotiation of a charitable "decent interval" allowing the yanks to save some face. Pathetic. ..."
"... Wars fought to make countries like Vietnam open to big corporations to move American jobs there. Corporate money backed by the fist of the Marines has worked all their lives, all their parents' lives, and all the modern history of America. "Why not now?", the sheep ask. ..."
"... According to Bobbie McNamara, American efforts resulted in the murder of over 4 million Vietnamese and the maiming of millions of others .MOSTLY CIVILIANS. ..."
"... If the war mongers had had an all-volunteer army like the one they have today, they could have and would have kept the Vietnam War going indefinitely. But, since they didn't, draftees and their parents wised-up to the Pentagon's money-making scam and put a stop to it by refusing to participate. ..."
"... Very rich families and corporatists started their own think tanks after World War II. This is when the looting began for RAND. These are the bastards Eisenhower was afraid of. Abe Lincoln feared the large corporations born of business profiteering during the U.S. Civil War -- the military industrial complex of the day -- easily constituted the greatest threat to the American republic. ..."
"... Remember that Eisenhower's definition of the complex included among the bastards, not only the military defense industry corporations, but also right alongside them the news media and the university and private research establishments. ..."
"... That war was a cluster fuck and a crime against humanity. It's only purpose was to make a few rich men richer. The murder and destruction in the MENA is just more of the same. ..."
Vietnam: it's always there. Looming in the past, informing American futures.
A 50-year-old war, once labeled the longest in our history, is still alive and well and
still being refought by one group of Americans: the military high command. And almost half a
century later, they're still losing it and blaming others for doing so.
Of course, the U.S. military and Washington policymakers lost the war in Vietnam in the
previous century and perhaps it's well that they did. The United States really had no business
intervening in that anti-colonial civil war in the first place, supporting a South Vietnamese
government of questionable legitimacy, and stifling promised nationwide elections on both sides
of that country's artificial border. In doing so, Washington presented an easy villain for a
North Vietnamese-backed National Liberation Front (NLF) insurgency, a group known to Americans
in those years as the Vietcong.
More than two decades of involvement and, at the war's peak, half a million American troops
never altered the basic weakness of the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. Despite millions of Asian
deaths and 58,000 American ones, South Vietnam's military could not, in the end, hold the line
without American support and finally collapsed under the weight of a conventional North
Vietnamese invasion in April 1975.
There's just one thing. Though a majority of historians (known in academia as the "orthodox"
school) subscribe to the basic contours of the above narrative, the vast majority of senior
American military officers do not. Instead, they're still refighting the Vietnam War to a far
cheerier outcome through the books they read, the scholarship they publish, and (most
disturbingly) the policies they continue to pursue in the Greater Middle East.
The Big Re-Write
In 1986, future general, Iraq-Afghan War commander, and CIA director David Petraeus penned
an article
for the military journal Parameters that summarized his Princeton doctoral
dissertation on the Vietnam War. It was a piece commensurate with then-Major Petraeus's
impressive intellect, except for its disastrous conclusions on the lessons of that war. Though
he did observe that Vietnam had "cost
the military dearly" and that "the frustrations of Vietnam are deeply etched in the minds of
those who lead the services," his real fear was that the war had left the military unprepared
to wage what were then called "low-intensity conflicts" and are now known as
counterinsurgencies. His takeaway: what the country needed wasn't less Vietnams but
better-fought ones. The next time, he concluded fatefully, the military should do a far better
job of implementing counterinsurgency forces, equipment, tactics, and doctrine to win such
wars.
Two decades later, when the next Vietnam-like quagmire did indeed present itself in Iraq, he
and a whole generation of COINdinistas (like-minded officers
devoted to his favored counterinsurgency approach to modern warfare) embraced those very
conclusions to win the war on terror. The names of some of them -- H.R. McMaster and James
Mattis, for instance -- should ring a bell or two these days. In Iraq and later in Afghanistan,
Petraeus and his acolytes would get their chance to translate theory into practice. Americans
-- and much of the rest of the planet -- still live with the results.
Like Petraeus, an entire generation of senior military leaders, commissioned in the years
after the Vietnam War and now atop the defense behemoth, remain fixated on that ancient
conflict. After all these decades, such "thinking" generals and "soldier-scholars" continue to
draw all the wrong lessons from what, thanks in part to them, has now become America's
second longest war.
Rival Schools
Historian Gary Hess identifies two main schools
of revisionist thinking.
Both schools, however, agreed on something basic: that the U.S. military should have won in
Vietnam.
The danger presented by either school is clear enough in the twenty-first century. Senior
commanders, some now serving in key national security positions, fixated on Vietnam, have
translated that conflict's supposed lessons into what now passes for military strategy in
Washington. The
result has been an ever-expanding war on terror campaign waged ceaselessly from South Asia
to West Africa, which has essentially turned out to be perpetual war based on the can-do belief
that counterinsurgency and advise-and-assist missions should have worked in Vietnam and can
work now.
The Go-Big Option
The leading voice of the Clausewitzian school was U.S. Army Colonel and Korean War/Vietnam
War vet Harry Summers, whose 1982 book, On Strategy : A
Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, became an instant classic within the military. It's
easy enough to understand why. Summers argued that civilian policymakers -- not the military
rank-and-file -- had lost the war by focusing hopelessly on the insurgency in South Vietnam
rather than on the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. More troops, more aggressiveness, even
full-scale invasions of communist safe havens in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, would have
led to victory.
Summers had a deep emotional investment in his topic.
Later , he would argue that the source of post-war pessimistic analyses of the conflict lay
in "draft dodgers and war evaders still [struggling] with their consciences." In his own
work, Summers marginalized all Vietnamese actors (as would so many later military historians),
failed to adequately deal with the potential consequences, nuclear or otherwise, of the sorts
of escalation he advocated, and didn't even bother to ask whether Vietnam was a core national
security interest of the United States.
Perhaps he would have done well to reconsider a famous post-war
encounter he had with a North Vietnamese officer, a Colonel Tu, whom he assured that "you
know you never beat us on the battlefield." "That may be so," replied his former enemy, "but it
is also irrelevant."
Whatever its limitations, his work remains influential in military circles to this day. (I
was assigned the book as a West Point cadet!)
A more sophisticated Clausewitzian analysis came from current National Security Adviser
H.R. McMaster in a highly acclaimed 1997 book, Dereliction of
Duty . He argued that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were derelict in failing to give
President Lyndon Johnson an honest appraisal of what it would take to win, which meant that
"the nation went to war without the benefit of effective military advice." He concluded that
the war was lost not in the field or by the media or even on antiwar college campuses, but in
Washington, D.C., through a failure of nerve by the Pentagon's generals, which led civilian
officials to opt for a deficient strategy.
McMaster is a genuine scholar and a gifted writer, but he still suggested that the Joint
Chiefs should have advocated for a more aggressive offensive strategy -- a full ground invasion
of the North or unrelenting carpet-bombing of that country. In this sense, he was just another
"go-big" Clausewitzian who, as historian Ronald Spector pointed
out recently, ignored Vietnamese views and failed to acknowledge -- an observation
of historian Edward Miller -- that "the Vietnam War was a Vietnamese war."
COIN: A Small (Forever) War
Another Vietnam veteran, retired Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Krepinevich, fired the opening
salvo for the hearts-and-minders. In The Army and Vietnam , published in 1986, he
argued
that the NLF, not the North Vietnamese Army, was the enemy's chief center of gravity and that
the American military's failure to emphasize counterinsurgency principles over conventional
concepts of war sealed its fate. While such arguments were, in reality, no more
impressive than those of the Clausewitzians, they have remained popular with military
audiences, as historian Dale Andrade points
out , because they offer a "simple explanation for the defeat in Vietnam."
Krepinevich would write an influential 2005 Foreign Affairspiece , "How to Win
in Iraq," in which he applied his Vietnam conclusions to a new strategy of prolonged
counterinsurgency in the Middle East, quickly winning over the New
York Times 's resident conservative columnist, David Brooks, and generating "discussion in
the Pentagon, CIA, American Embassy in Baghdad, and the office of the vice president."
In 1999, retired army officer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley penned the definitive
hearts-and-minds tract, A Better War : The
Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam . Sorley boldly
asserted
that, by the spring of 1970, "the fighting wasn't over, but the war was won." According to his
comforting tale, the real explanation for failure lay with the "big-war" strategy of U.S.
commander General William Westmoreland. The counterinsurgency strategy of his successor,
General Creighton Abrams -- Sorley's knight in shining armor -- was (or at least should have
been) a war winner.
Critics
noted that Sorley overemphasized the marginal differences between the two generals'
strategies and produced a remarkably counterfactual work. It didn't matter, however. By 2005,
just as the situation in Iraq, a country then locked in a sectarian civil war amid an American
occupation, went from bad to worse, Sorley's book found
its way into the hands of the head of U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid, and State
Department counselor Philip Zelikow. By then, according
to the Washington Post 's David Ignatius, it could also "be found on the
bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad."
Another influential hearts-and-minds devotee was Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl. (He even
made it
onto The Daily Show with Jon Stewart .) His Learning to Eat Soup with
a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam followed Krepinevich in
claiming that "if [Creighton] Abrams had gotten the call to lead the American effort at the
start of the war, America might very well have won it." In 2006, the Wall Street
Journalreported that Army Chief of Staff
General Peter Schoomaker "so liked [Nagl's] book that he made it required reading for all
four-star generals," while the Iraq War commander of that moment, General George Casey, gave
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a copy during a visit to Baghdad.
David Petraeus and current Secretary of Defense James Mattis, co-authors in 2006 of
FM 3-24, the first ( New York Times -reviewed ) military field manual for counterinsurgency since
Vietnam, must also be considered among the pantheon of hearts-and-minders. Nagl wrote a
foreword for their manual,
while Krepinevich provided a glowing back-cover endorsement .
Such revisionist interpretations would prove tragic in Iraq and Afghanistan, once they had
filtered down to the entire officer corps.
Reading All the Wrong Books
In 2009, when former West Point history professor Colonel Gregory Daddis was deployed
to Iraq as the command historian for the Multinational Corps -- the military's primary tactical
headquarters -- he noted that corps commander Lieutenant General Charles Jacoby had assigned a
professional reading list to his principal subordinates. To his disappointment, Daddis also
discovered that the only Vietnam War book included was Sorley's A Better War . This
should have surprised no one, since his argument -- that American soldiers in Vietnam
were
denied an impending victory by civilian policymakers, a liberal media, and antiwar protestors
-- was still resonant among the officer corps in year six of the Iraq quagmire. It wasn't the
military's fault!
Officers have long distributed professional reading lists for subordinates, intellectual
guideposts to the complex challenges ahead. Indeed, there's much to be admired in the concept,
but also potential dangers in such lists as they inevitably influence the thinking of an entire
generation of future leaders. In the case of Vietnam, the perils are obvious. The generals have
been assigning and reading problematic books for years, works that were essentially meant to
reinforce professional pride in the midst of a series of unsuccessful and unending wars.
Just after 9/11, for instance, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers -- who spoke at my
West Point graduation -- included Summers's On
Strategy on his list. A few years later, then-Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker
added
McMaster's Dereliction of Duty . The trend continues today. Marine Corps Commandant
Robert Neller has kept McMaster and added Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger (he of the
illegal bombing of both Laos and Cambodia and war
criminal fame). Current Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley kept Kissinger and
added good
old Lewis Sorley. To top it all off, Secretary of Defense Mattis has included
yet another Kissinger book and, in a different list , Krepinevich's
The Army and Vietnam .
Just as important as which books made the lists is what's missing from them: none of these
senior commanders include newer scholarship
,
novels , or journalistic accounts which might raise thorny, uncomfortable questions about
whether the Vietnam War was winnable, necessary, or advisable, or incorporate local voices that
might highlight the limits of American influence and power.
Serving in the Shadow of Vietnam
Most of the generals leading the war on terror just missed service in the Vietnam War.
They graduated from various colleges or West Point in the years immediately following the
withdrawal of most U.S. ground troops or thereafter: Petraeus in
1974 , future Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal in 1976 , and present National Security Adviser H.R.
McMaster in 1984 .
Secretary of Defense Mattis finished ROTC and graduated from Central Washington University in
1971 , while
Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly enlisted at the tail end of the Vietnam War, receiving his
commission in 1976
.
In other words, the generation of officers now overseeing the still-spreading war on terror
entered military service at the end of or after the tragic war in Southeast Asia. That meant
they narrowly escaped combat duty in the bloodiest American conflict since World War II and so
the professional credibility that went with it. They were mentored and taught by academy
tactical officers, ROTC instructors, and commanders who had cut their teeth on that conflict.
Vietnam literally dominated the discourse of their era -- and it's never ended.
Petraeus, Mattis, McMaster, and the others entered service when military prestige had
reached a nadir or was just rebounding. And those reading lists taught the young officers where
to lay the blame for that -- on civilians in Washington (or in the nation's streets) or on a
military high command too weak to assert its authority effectively. They would serve in
Vietnam's shadow, the shadow of defeat, and the conclusions they would draw from it would only
lead to twenty-first-century disasters .
From Vietnam to the War on Terror to Generational War
All of this misremembering, all of those Vietnam "lessons" inform the U.S. military's
ongoing "surges" and "advise-and-assist" approaches to its wars in the Greater Middle East and
Africa. Representatives of both Vietnam revisionist schools now guide the development of the
Trump administration's version of global strategy. President Trump's in-house Clausewitzians
clamor for -- and receive
-- ever more delegated authority to do their damnedest and what retired General (and Vietnam
vet) Edward Meyer called for
back in 1983: "a freer hand in waging war than they had in Vietnam." In other words, more
bombs, more troops, and carte blanche to escalate such conflicts to their hearts' content.
Meanwhile, President Trump's hearts-and-minds faction consists of officers who have
spent three administrations expanding COIN-influenced missions to approximately 70%
of the world's nations. Furthermore, they've recently fought for and been granted a new
"mini-surge" in Afghanistan intended to -- in disturbingly Vietnam-esque language -- "break the
deadlock ," "reverse the decline," and "end the
stalemate " there. Never mind that neither 100,000 U.S. troops (when I was
there in 2011) nor 16 full years of combat could, in the term of the trade, "stabilize"
Afghanistan. The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced
Trump that -- despite his original
instincts -- 4,000 or 5,000 (or
6,000 or 7,000) more troops (and yet more
drones ,
planes , and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents tragedy bordering on
farce.
The hearts and minders and Clausewitzians atop the military establishment since 9/11 are
never likely to stop citing their versions of the Vietnam War as the key to victory today; that
is, they will never stop focusing on a war that was always unwinnable and never worth fighting.
None of today's acclaimed military personalities seems willing to consider that Washington
couldn't have won in Vietnam because, as former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak (who
flew
269 combat missions over that country) noted in the
recent Ken Burns documentary series, "we were fighting on the wrong side."
Today's leaders don't even pretend that the post-9/11 wars will ever end. In an
interview last June, Petraeus -- still considered a sagacious guru of the Defense establishment
-- disturbingly described the Afghan conflict as " generational ."
Eerily enough, to cite a Vietnam-era precedent, General Creighton Abrams predicted something
similar. speaking to the White House as the war in Southeast Asia was winding down. Even as
President Richard Nixon slowly withdrew U.S. forces, handing over their duties to the South
Vietnamese Army (ARVN) -- a process known then as "Vietnamization" -- the general warned
that, despite ARVN improvements, continued U.S. support "would be required indefinitely to
maintain an effective force." Vietnam, too, had its "generational" side (until, of course, it
didn't).
It's not that our generals don't read. They do. They just doggedly continue to read the
wrong books.
In 1986, General Petraeus ended his influential Parametersarticle
with a quote from historian George Herring: "Each historical situation is unique and the use of
analogy is at best misleading, at worst, dangerous." When it comes to Vietnam and a cohort of
officers shaped in its shadow (and even now convinced it could have been won), "dangerous"
hardly describes the results. They've helped bring us generational war and, for today's young
soldiers, ceaseless tragedy.
[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
The book that needs to be written is the one that explores the question, "Does this war need
to be fought by us?"
The guys running the show now were mid-grade officers when I served in the '80s. They know
we already were waging a war on terror, but it was a quiet one, e.g "low-intensity conflict,"
the kind that doesn't pump up budgets or put lots of ribbons and badges on the chests of more
than a few of them, much less punch the ticket for promotion.
The problem here is one of governance: Civilians who should be reigning in and questioning
the military leadership (including the senior civilian leadership at DoD and apparently
State) when it wants to take us on yet another foreign adventure seem instead to be be
captive to them, because the spoils of war accrue to their benefit via procurement in their
districts.
Vietnam and the GWOT are merely symptoms of a bigger problem.
BTW, re Vietnam: Vietnam went through its Communist phase, but in a rather short time came
back to pseudo-capitalism, much like China, so aside from nearly 60k US troops and a few
million Viets killed and 20 years of lost time, what did we gain from fighting there?
America tends to gain from commerce what it thinks it will get by warfare. Not so much the
other way around.
Didn't US realize that it can win any war with bribes and trade?
Vietnam lost in the end. Its greedy corrupt elites are now puppets of US. They allow
open prostitution in Ho Chi Minh city. They allow Vietnamese women to be a bunch of hookers
again.
And Vietnam even has homo parades because it comes with more gibs and bribes.
They established a myth that we almost won in Vietnam but the politicians wouldn't let us
finish the job, claiming we never lost a battle in Vietnam. That is false, so I posted a list
of 104 "Lost Battles of the Vietnam War" that squashed this myth.
"America tends to gain from commerce what it thinks it will get by warfare. Not so
much the other way around" Rather like 20th century Germany, don't you think?
Thanks for that link. I agree, whitewashing those tragedies is a grave disservice to our
soldiers who had to fight in those conditions (how are we supposed to learn from our mistakes
if we can't even come to terms with what we did wrong?).
No the JCS initially said SE Asia was strategically a backwater and not worth the
concentrating of America's limited resources. But military high command were operating within
longstanding army protocols of subordinating the military to civilian policymakers. It was
the CIA's job to say whether the war could be won and they were always skeptical.
America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War makes clear who was responsible for
pressing for escalation and bombing in Vietnam, who was the optimist, and who continued to
insisted after it had finished that the war had stabilized a domino.
If one's fundamental image of the world is as a place full of Quislings, McCains and assorted
dual nationals; then it follows that one will be militarily a Coindinista. If only third
world citizens were like American pols and stayed bought, but they aren't and they don't. If
one's fundamental image is that it is a world full of nationalists, patriots and Churchills:
then the bomb them back to non-existence; then it follows that one is a Summer's soldier.
Unfortunately, if one wishes to debate other nuanced alternatives to this dichotomy; the
enemy gets to shoot first. A policeman walks a beat in his city because he is paid to do it,
the "world's indispensable policeman" is unnecessary to the rest of the world but inevitable
to himself.
The Vietnam war killed the draft. The draft is involuntary servitude, slavery in a sense.
For ordinary Americans this was the only positive thing to come from the war.
Blah blah blah. That war was a cluster fuck and a crime against humanity. It's only purpose
was to make a few rich men richer. The murder and destruction in the MENA is just more of the
same.
It's also weird that the idea of Vietnam War as a missionary conflict is never discussed. The
colonial Vietnam & later South Vietnam government gave preference to christians in
governmental positions, bureaucracy & had a monopoly on education. The prevailing
narrative in the west, is that somehow christianity is better & that people flock to it
due to this, just like their ancestors did. Mosmaiorum.org/persecution_list.html
For example, the anti Buddhist discriminatory laws in Korea are never discussed, neither
is the flooding of Japan with bibles post ww2. In the present age you have missionaries
following closely behind the USA army & organizations like the US council on religious
freedom being headed by missionaries sic. soul vultures.
From that pov, if white nationalists cannot control the predatory instincts of 'their'
people nor disavow them by becoming Pagan; then, they deserve their fate & should expect
no support from outsiders. As others have remarked, tariffs & protectionism help accrue
capital as do socially conservative views. The pushing of free trade & social liberalism
on 2nd/3rd world countries is akin to kicking the ladder. It's probably in everyone's
interest for the Protestant west to collapse under Afro-Islamic demographic pressure so the
great clean up can begin. Tldr yes state power leads to liberalism & liberal views but,
if you view that as the legacy of your people, fuck your people.
we are deeply at odds. We did not lose the Vietnam conflict. I am confident that billions
of dollars have been spent drilling that myth into the minds of well everyone. I remember
being a young poli-sci student in KS. And as I listened to the lecture on Vietnam, did the
reading my conclusion was so distant from his as to cause me no small amount of turmoil. The
contention that we lost Vietnam is so counter to the data -- it makes the Twilight Zone look
like Gilligan's Island, the twists on reality are directionless -- but conclude we lost, when
nothing could be further from the truth.
I have another theory, the reason that Vietnam remains etched in the psyche is because the
analysis was political as opposed to what actually occurred. This kind of hyperventilated
self flagellating recriminations will distort truth. Perception over reality -- then becomes
self fulling history.
_________________
But to the point. The US has lost two wars: The war of 1812 and in my view, the Iraq
conflict -- no direct fault of those on the ground doing the fighting. And we may lose the
Afghanistan gambit. It's a loss because it fell apart during our occupation. The guerrilla
warfare (asymmetrics) was not the issues for that failure. The failure was in
1. unjustifiable cause
2. poor implementation
3. under resourced
4. an inability to maintain order among communities -- (1-3)
5. and just a lot of bad decisions
Trying compare Vietnam to Iraq is like trying compare a stone to water in similarity. You
might be able to some generic references and very tiny specifics, but overall: the
environment politically and strategically, just never mesh. We didn't invade Vietnam. They
had a functioning government. There were clear lines of who was who based on borders (I am
not ignoring the insurgency -- Vietcong, etc.
It was the cold war and unlike Iraq there were not six varying countries throwing a myriad
of combatants into the fray with varying agendas and varying religious convictions. Even the
physical environment demanded a different strategy, insurgents or no insurgents.
One has to plan for insurgent warfare as invading any country is bound to have those who
get the best defense is one of stealth when your foe is as large a target as the US was in
Iraq. But for all of the complaints about Counter-Insurgency the one that no one seems
willing to state is the simplest. Don't invade countries for which there is no clean or clear
motive to do so. It's that simple. There was never a need to invade Iraq, if anything we
should have readjusted our dynamic and began a process of easing sanctions for their aide in
countering terrorism.
There was no reason to invade Afghanistan -- even to distribute more bikinis and advance
killing children in the womb. We wanted twenty guys and instead we stirred a hornet's nest .
. . ok well, more than one.
Vietnam really was an act of selflessness, we wanted to shore up a small republic seeking
a different course to communism. It bolstered our own ideas against the grand schema of the
Soviet Union, rightly or wrongly. Now you are not the only one who has a gripe with
counterinsurgency.
And I think it's a debate/discussion worth having, and while it may be useful to examine
COIN as to Vietnam strategically -- I think it can be done minus the incorrect and yet
incessant sack cloth and ashes built on mountains of liberal psychological faux trauma as if
the trauma of war is somehow unique to Vietnam,. It is not. As you know war is a nasty filthy
business, best left alone. But on occasion one gets pushed into a fight as did S. Vietnam and
when that screw is turned -- well history is replete of the consequences, the waste, the
blood, the brokenness . . . The tragedy of war does not mean one loses a war.
How true! If only the US had recognized the power of man's baser instincts and did what
the US does best -- continue selling its culture of consumerism and hedonism, Vietnam would
have arrived at the point much sooner and with virtually no loss of life.
Ultimately, the victory of WW2 due to sheer weight of industrial productivity ramp and
hence massive output of planes, tanks, submarines, etc. made defense a large part of the US
economy. Since that time, too many entrenched interests just never want the military to
downsize. Hence, the US has to keep invented new demand for a product that otherwise would
not have such demand, but keeps some major entrenched interests powerful.
I mean, the Korean war started just 5 years after WW2 ended. They could barely wait for a
new crop of boys to turn 18 and become cannon fodder. 50,000 in Korea right after the 300,000
in WW2.
When casualties became politically incorrect (after VietNam), the focus shifted towards
lengthy 'nation building', that was not meant to succeed, but just to cost a lot for a long
time. In theory, the Iraq War could have worked, IF the true objective was the installation
of a moderate regime in Iraq, coupled with no extended US occupation. But that was not the
true objective after all, so it did not work.
The BIGGEST lesson to come out of the illegal and immoral War against Vietnam is that the
draft was impeding the MIC's effort to sell Americans on the idea of supporting endless
war.
Get rid of the draft and there will be no protests hell raised back home by people of
draft age–and their families and friends–who don't want to get drafted to fight
wars so colonels can become generals; Wall Street can make a killing on the killing and so
the Pentagon can try out its new 'gee-whiz' weapons in the field on actual people.
The next biggest lesson was that the media must be tamed and brought under control with
embedding, so they'll push the Pentagon's and Wall Street message of duty, honor, Mom and
apple pie onto gullible Americans, who now damn near get orgasmic when they see a
multi-billion dollar killing machine–the B-2–fly over the upcoming gladiator
battle in the newest billion dollar coliseum and go into the State-mandated 'Two Minutes
Hate' whenever they see or hear the word Muslim or Islam.
For the record, I did my time in the US Army with the 82nd Airborne.
So America worships Ares/Mars and doesn't expect the god of War to want to eat them too?
There shall be wars and rumors of wars .I so look forward to watching this love of war spread
itself from sea to shining sea.
Until the young wise up and realize that the military operations in other countries have
nothing to do with the freedoms we have here and that they're being used as fodder for the
investments that the MIC has in the companies that make the tools of war, we will keep having
this nonsense. The kids need to wise up. The government has at its disposal all it needs to
'win' if it wants to. But if you 'win' , the sales and manufacturing of the
goodies is curtailed. They'd rather send the kids into the meat grinder all pumped up
thinking they're 'preserving freedom' LOL!
Nice, thank U. I´d never before had figured out, never outlined such a precise
conceptual sight of the two still remaining American mindsets on HOW to win.
Yes, cause for them Amerika must obviously must always win. So there are two viewpoints, that
in plain clear English we citizens of the shitholin´ countries wherever -- express as
follows:
Yes, you say tariffs and proteccionism help accrue capital.
Have you got any objection against a large, populous but still poor country (like Nigeria,
Indonesia, India or Brazil) sticking to higher (though not sky high) tariffs and
protectionism to raise their production, their income and their living standards?
That was PRECISELY HOW the US, Uk, Germany and the Meiji era Japan, not to mention China
from 1949 to Chu enLai) acted and because of it rose the heights of the present status and
well being societies.
Yes, you naive repeater, let´s us first protect ourselves from the globalist wolves
and THEN, we can sit down and talk but from a firm solid position, not the other way round.
cut the frack! We southern people are fed up with that northern hemispheric sales talk
– it ´s so convenient to you – but the web exists and times change.
It's not that our generals don't read. They do. They just doggedly continue to read the
wrong books.
It's not just the generals. The whole idea of the state is to control the uncontrollable
in order to continue "growing". That's why we conducted Vietnam as we did and why we conduct
operations as we do all over the world. Rather than Total War that produces winners and
losers we are trying to keep a lid on behavioral sinks and modify behavior so that economic
"growth" can continue.
I am not advocating Total War, but I am predicting that horrible war is coming.
How many dead men will it take
To build a dike that will not break?
The Zionists have been the root cause of every war that America has been in since WWI and
right on through the wars in the Mideast and the wars in the Mideast were perpetrated by the
Israeli and Zionist controlled deep state attack on 911.
America is under Zionist control and if anyone doubts this, just remember Israel did the
attack on 911 and got away with and every thinking American knows that Zionist Israel did the
attack which killed 3000 Americans, that is control.
. . .supporting a South Vietnamese government of questionable legitimacy
Actually the US created the "Republic of Vietnam" within Vietnam, which was rather
unusual, and then fought Vietnam. The US grabbed a Christian out of a New Jersey seminary
(Ngo Dinh Diem) to run the Buddhist "country," that didn't help. More recently the US has
overthrown governments (Iraq and Afghanistan) and then fought the natives. Whatever, it
doesn't work. The citizens (AKA dissidents, insurgents, terrorists, etc.) so effected don't
want US troops in their countries, and who can blame them.
Why do credulous Americans read anti-war books written by war criminals? Only brainwashed
people support the troops. Most Americans hated soldiers after Vietnam. They had seen
soldiers raping wives and daughters, burning houses and huts and crops and wiping out entire
villages. They knew that men who agree to kill for a paycheck do other bad things like raping
and looting and then writing books about it later.
The cons put a stop to all those "incorrect" ideas American slaves had developed by
ramping up the propaganda in the 1980s. Movies kicked in and "learned" the zombies about the
wonderfulness of war and killing and how American soldiers kill with love in their hearts and
the tragedy of the boy baby killers left behind – probably by "communists in the US
Government."
The United States really had no business intervening
That's a, maybe "the," key concept. The US has always had enough internal problems
of its own to deal with and it should always have tended to its own interest first. Damned
know-it-all, brainless busybodies!
I suspect most of them would wise up if their elders did so first, and would teach 'em.
One of the most annoying sights to me is to see some ancient fart wearing some sign that he's
a vet. Even though I was once a sucker too, I always make it a point to remind them that we
had no business in whatever war they happen to be glorifying and still wallowing in. How old
does one have to be to get a clue?
Nothing quite says freedom like heavily armed soldiers on the streets demanding papers. Soon
the US will have the same situation, with the "freedom loving" Americans willingly
surrendering all their freedoms for "safety." Today the US government spies on everyone's
communications, conducts over 80,000 SWAT raids a year, locks over 2 million people in actual
slavery, and lets the cops execute people on the street. Nothing quite says Freedom when cops
can execute poor people without any repercussions. Nothing quite says Freedom when opiate
casualties in one year exceed the American total in Vietnam. Nothing quite says zombie when
Americans can't see the war that is being waged on them right now.
Is that true? The Military simply harvested the poors out of the hills, the South and
other rural areas the same way they would have drafted 'em. All the kids respond once the
Government offers them a way out of potential starvation and hopeless poverty. That's just a
better way to draft people, although they won't call it that.
The same generals who let 911 happen and started the Iraq war still run the show. All of
them should have faced a firing squad for that, but instead, the grossly incompetent General
Kelly runs the White House and the grossly incompetent Mattis runs the military.
"The danger presented by either school is clear enough in the twenty-first century."
Apparently it is not close to clear. The warhawk imperialists – some of them
Clausewtizians and most COINdinistas – rule everything. No matter how many lives are
lost, no matter how much money is wasted, they demand we remain on the same path of playing
world hegemon. George Washington fought the British Empire for our freedom, so our subsequent
leaders, starting most importantly with Lincoln, could remake the country into the British
Empire 2.0.
"Because we are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every go*k is an American
trying to get out." Replace 'Vietnamese' with 'Middle Easterners' and 'gook' with 'Arab' or
'Moslem,' and you have the Neocon position. Replace 'Vietnamese' with 'the world' and replace
'gook' with 'dark skinned non-Christian' and place the word "liberal' before 'American,' and
you have the Liberal/Leftist position.
As a youth during that time it seemed like a strange idea that they were pushing. How could
Vietnamese be invading Vietnam? They already live there. The Americans had to travel
thousands of miles to prevent this. Years later I realize my youthful intuition was right;
Vietnamese can't invade Vietnam. This North-South dichotomy was just a made up propaganda
tool. The South was an artificial concoction set up by the West to divide someone else's
country. This question of how could we have won is absurd nonsense. What would 'winning' have
looked like? The South would just have been a multi-billion millstone around our neck.
The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced Trump
that -- despite his original instincts -- 4,000 or 5,000 (or 6,000 or 7,000) more troops
(and yet more drones, planes, and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents
tragedy bordering on farce.
No; it's psychotic, psychopathic mayhem and mass-murder. Lemma: At any crime-scene,
there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories, apologists and/or 'idle'
bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a) restrain malefactors and
where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in active resistance to the
crime attract proportional guilt. Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes
him/herself an accessory, like all residents in the 'illegitimate entity' and/or the puppet
executives, manufacturers of the means and their enablers = the whole MIC[*] plus all their
dependents, say.
[*] The US rogue regime = US-M/I/C/4a†-plex, with dog-wagging-tail, its
illegitimate sprog the Zionist/Israeli rogue regime + Js = I/J/Z-plex, all components rife
with corruption.
a = academic = econ, psy, leg et al.; 4 = MSM+PFBCs, † = churches
add a few significant stragglers like $ = banksters & ¿ = spies
=====
It's a lot, and here I point for emphasis to all the citizens of the two named entities;
silence is acquiescence. Take a look at the result, not 'just' in Afghanistan but Libya,
Syria etc., the WC7in5 [fortunately not
yet Iran]; wherever the US/Zs deploy their 'hammers.'
In the fewest words: The US/Zs including their 'ordinary people' are all true monsters,
with the only exception being the actively objecting few.
Not so BTW, from the above [but not only] I conclude that there can be no 'god' –
for surely, any such would strike all the US/Z villains down.
Again a 'special case' for emphasis, the intellectuals and academics who really should
know better but where again, silence is acquiescence.
*Guilty, your honour; may they all hang by the neck until dead!* rgds
American sheep can't see war even though they are in one. What better weapon than to have a
group of writers spreading disinformation and colorful propaganda that revolves around
discrediting the other propaganda with falsehoods and romanticization of the war that came
before. Let's have yet another debate about the thing that happened half a century ago
because driving the flock in circles gets them no where closer to resistance.
Meanwhile the real war. If the financial crisis wasn't a terrorist attack because the
press never told you, what will you believe? If more men and women die in one year because of
opiates than in the entire Vietnam effort, will the real owners tell you in their newspapers
that they do it because they want to win?
I think the kids are more pumped up with college tuition, VA health , a chance to learn a
civilian applicable skill , citizenship and something to do other than competing with illegal
Indios for low wages.
Save the BS for your fellow geezer drunks at the VFW lounge. Vietnam featured a
complete collapse of the conscripted US military, rampant drug use, fragging,
insubordination, faked injuries, disintegration of the chain of command, mass murder of
civilians, and finally TOTAL DEFEAT after turning tail and running following the negotiation
of a charitable "decent interval" allowing the yanks to save some face. Pathetic.
The Vietnam war was not a "civil-war" but was an INVASION by the North Vietnamese
communists, who were not amenable to letting people decide for themselves what political
system they chose to live under. They wanted "the whole pie". The South Vietnamese and
American military fought courageously, with one hand tied behind their backs, as they were
not permitted to attack the supply lines, logistics and staging areas of the North Vietnamese
communists. The American news media played a large part in the sympathetic attitudes they had
towards the communists, taking every chance to denigrate American and South Vietnamese
troops, a prime example was communist sympathizer Walter Cronkite reporting that the 1968
"Tet offensive" was a "major loss" for Americans and south Vietnamese, despite it being a
total slaughter of North Vietnamese communists and the Viet Cong. In fact, the Viet Cong
operating in the South were almost all totally decimated.
Yes, the final result of the Vietnam war was communist control, BUT, it was not due to the
efforts of South Vietnamese and American troops. The Vietnamese "boat people" who risked life
and limb to escape that communist "paradise" have a totally different story to tell, but
which had been rarely reported. Ken Burns is a communist sympathizer whose "documentary" on
the Vietnam war was so one-sided, even the communists admitted that his whole premise on the
Vietnam war was one-sided and false. Communist sympathizer Ken Burns inadvertently "let it
slip" that "re-education" by the communists was not a "six month deal" (as he claimed) in
which those in positions of power in South Vietnam would be "re-educated", but were actually
prisons, in which "enemies of the (communist) state were to be interned for as long as 20
years. It is interesting to note that the communists could not exert the same harsh level of
control as was the case in the North, to the people in the South.
Apparently unfamiliar with my long and detailed discussions here and at TAC about the
Vietnam War. I don't think you will find a single suggestion in mt two or more years of
discussion on Vietnam , that it was a civil war -- it was not. In every way, the North
Vietnamese were the aggressors. And if anyone looking at the political issues and objectives
of what happened in Vietnam – those who protested got nearly every aspect about Vietnam
wrong, nearly every contention they make was predicated on the incorrect information, except
one.
war is a nasty filthy affair in which a lot hoes wrong – because that is part and
parcel to the nature of war so many moving pieces on so many potential unpredictable planes.
The entire enterprise is best avoided, but sometimes as in the case of S. Vietnam, you are
left little choice but to defend yourself. Boys and girls afraid to fight screaming "Give
peace a chance" at the defenders like pushing a drowning men under the waves and telling him
all he need do is swim.
You are preaching to the choir and the preacher.
I am going to avoid rehashing the conflict, I think the data sets are on my side in tons.
But I think the authors intentions are to really dismantle the cadre and their advocacy of
COIN. Given that the current President has reneged on his campaign agenda to avoid needless
wars violating the territory of others to regime change. The issue of counter insurgency is
relevant. Because it looks like we are in for more than we bargained for. No doubt, SAS, the
French Legionaries, CIA and a spec ops contingents are pre-prepping for insurgencies of our
own.
A brief look suggests that the only effective response to counter insurgency is
intelligence and brutal response. though intended to suggest finesse, in the end -- it's root
them out and destroy them. I think this is one those the cure is worse than the illness,
because without indigenous support for your political and strategic goals in country --
brutal reprisals eventually reignite acts of terror as a means of self defense.
What are you a troll playing the same old broken record spewing forth the same old line,
for there was a vote coming up by the Geneva Accord, to decide just what kind of government
the two Vietnam's wanted, a vote that would'nt go the way we wanted thus the false flag to
get us involved.
FDR had made a deal with Ho that if they would rise up and drive out the Japs that Vietnam
could choose their own destiny, colonialism was dead he said, well until that little man in
the to big a house got into office and then once again America's word wasn't worth a mouth
full of warm spit and its never changed
Today's officer corps would spare us all a great deal of cost, blood and grief and we
Americans would all do much better if the cadets', midshipmen's, officer candidates' and
officer corps' reading list began with the Bernard Fall book Rue Sans Joie .
Rand? American Conservative? Tom's Dispatch? All fake news for the sheep, i.e COIN. If
people want change, they have to refuse to cooperate. That means no voting. Voting means you
agree with the basic trends and just want to tweak the system. All of us have gotten cheated
by the Government all of our lives. Destruction of schools so people can't learn. Wars
fought to make countries like Vietnam open to big corporations to move American jobs there.
Corporate money backed by the fist of the Marines has worked all their lives, all their
parents' lives, and all the modern history of America. "Why not now?", the sheep
ask.
The religious aspect of the Vietnamese CIVIL WAR is overlooked by the senile VFW geezers
posting here. The patriots were mostly Buddhists the quislings were mostly Catholics
(inherited from the French). In between perving little kids, American Cardinals and Bishops
demanded even more war and Vietnamese blood. The bloodthirsty homo, Cardinal Spellman, would
even visit the troops in person and exhort them to create more carnage and mayhem.
According to Bobbie McNamara, American efforts resulted in the murder of over 4 million
Vietnamese and the maiming of millions of others .MOSTLY CIVILIANS. The role of the vile
bloodthirsty Homo Cult of the Seven Hills has been mostly overlooked.
Note, I list of sites is not definitive. There are articles critical and article
supportive of COIN. Some articles are just descriptive of what COIN means. COIN has been a
subject of a good deal of debate for a very long time. Most articles are from TAC because
that is the site I most frequently read and comment. And as Dr. Unz will tell you, they
invite a host of articles by a host of authors -- with varying view points.
About Rand, they are one of the most noteable contributors to government policy via
research and while one may not appreciate their advocacy, it's not a bad idea to read what
they are presenting on issues, in this case COIN. Even considering broad definitions of fake
news -- it is unlikely that Rand would be included as such an outlet.
One of the advances launched in the late sixties -- forward was that Vietnam was a MIC
windfall and in fact manufactured by the MIC.
I don't think there is much evidence of that. Pres Johnson and most of the leadership
actually saw it as a case for democracy against the Chinese, the Soviets -- etc. You are not
going to be able to escape the private sector profiting from war. Sure had democracy and
capitalism actually won the day , I don't think there is any question money would have been
made -- capitalism is a very healthy system -- if operated minus manipulation/unfair
dealings. But that is not unique. One does business where business is. but cold war strategic
aims made money for lots of people -- that doesn't deny that there was actually a system of
proxy engagements for democracy and communism.
I am not a member of the VFW. I don't drink and have never been drunk. There was drug use
how prevalent it was is unclear. not enough to prevent mission readiness, it appears.
A lot has been made of fragging, but if you can find the numbers -- The evidence is very
sparse that this practice was anywhere close to a staple. Here's an estimate 800 such
incidents attempted. But given that there are only about 13 confirms that estimations is
suspect. Some 3 million service members service in Vietnam that's a percentage of
0.026666666666% attempted. The actual number of men who died as the result of fragging
0.0005% and i used the highest number of fifteen actuals.
There were tragic incidents of mass killings, but those two were rare. The next series of
complaints are hard to quantify -- but suffice it to say, whatever the complaints -- when
push came to shove the US service member repeatedly got the job done. And contrary to your
comments, the process of the US withdrawal is well documented. More than anything, they
secured a line of defense, and the situation at home was the most pressing. There is no
evidence that the US ran from the battle field.
OI think the evidence is clear that we should maintained support via air and sea power to
ensure the victory was maintained on behalf of the S. Vietnamese who fought and died to
defend their country. kudos to the Aussie's for their loyal support.
If the war mongers had had an all-volunteer army like the one they have today, they could
have and would have kept the Vietnam War going indefinitely. But, since they didn't, draftees
and their parents wised-up to the Pentagon's money-making scam and put a stop to it by
refusing to participate.
Money's made fighting wars not winning them. 1945 was the last time the US made the
mistake of winning a war, and may not have made that one had Russia not been on the verge of
invading and occupying Japan, thus forcing the US into bringing the war to a close.
Very rich families and corporatists started their own think tanks after World War II.
This is when the looting began for RAND. These are the bastards Eisenhower was afraid of. Abe
Lincoln feared the large corporations born of business profiteering during the U.S. Civil War
-- the military industrial complex of the day -- easily constituted the greatest threat to
the American republic.
Remember that Eisenhower's definition of the complex included among the bastards, not
only the military defense industry corporations, but also right alongside them the news media
and the university and private research establishments.
Tom Jefferson thought periodic revolution against wealth and authority was desirable to
keep these bastards in check. Which implies that he figured they would inevitably get us by
the throat down on the floor from time to time.
I don't think that you understand at all the history of the USG involvement in
VietNam–an act of selflessness??? What a crock.
The entire foreign policy of the united states has been controlled by the
military/industrial/security/espionage etc etc complex since, at least, the end of WWII. that
group doesn't really care about victory–on going conflict somewhere is the only goal.
Personally, I doubt that the USG has ever committed a selfless act in it's entire history.
VietNam was just one stop in a long line of USG aggression.
Of course, the U.S. military and Washington policymakers lost the war in Vietnam in
the previous century and perhaps it's well that they did.
LOL.. True enough. Yet an assortment of "Church of Rambo" true believers in civilian life,
including several here on Unz, continue to insist that that the US never lost the war, hell,
never even lost a battle -- claims all debunked by credible historians and military men who
fought there.
the vast majority of senior American military officers do not. Instead, they're still
refighting the Vietnam War to a far cheerier outcome through the books they read, the
scholarship they publish, and (most disturbingly) the policies they continue to pursue in
the Greater Middle East.
The weakness of the piece is that you don't say exactly which Vietnam approach today's
generals are following. Are they doing the "big battalions" approach of Westmoreland's
"search and destroy"? Are they doing the "Expanding Inkblot" of Marine General Krulak,
Sorley's "Better war", or John Paul Vann's "Hearts and Minds"?? You say these are all things
from Vietnam but exactly which one is in place, and why is it losing?
Blah blah blah. That war was a cluster fuck and a crime against humanity. It's only
purpose was to make a few rich men richer. The murder and destruction in the MENA is just
more of the same.
Two decades later, when the next Vietnam-like quagmire did indeed present itself in
Iraq, he and a whole generation of COINdinistas (like-minded officers devoted to his
favored counterinsurgency approach to modern warfare) embraced those very conclusions to
win the war on terror.
Again questionable. Petraeus had the correct approach to counter the previous "lets just
invade and beat Saddam" approach of Rumsfeld. Rummy's "lean force" package backed by almost
unlimited air power was enough to win the conventional struggle but was woefully short of the
numbers needed for occupation and pacification. Same thing happened to Hitler in the Balkans.
Initial smooth success, grinding guerrilla attrition for years afterward.
Both schools, however, agreed on something basic: that the U.S. military should have
won in Vietnam.
"Winning" by 1972 did not contemplate victorious US troops marching into Hanoi, or total
abandonment of the field by PAVN/VC but a better final political settlement enabling the
southern regime to survive, and/or a "decent interval" for the US to save face.
n 1999, retired army officer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley penned the definitive
hearts-and-minds tract, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of
America's Last Years in Vietnam. Sorley boldly asserted that, by the spring of 1970, "the
fighting wasn't over, but the war was won." According to his comforting tale, the real
explanation for failure lay with the "big-war" strategy of U.S. commander General William
Westmoreland. The counterinsurgency strategy of his successor, General Creighton Abrams --
Sorley's knight in shining armor -- was (or at least should have been) a war
winner.
You are misrepresenting Sorley's full argument somewhat. Sorley did not envision or claim
that there would have been any sweeping US victory with US troops marching into Hanoi, or
that the VC/NVA would flee and abandon the struggle. A big part of his argument is for "a
better war" – that is- the end game of which inevitably would be a BETTER NEGOTIATED
SETTLEMENT. Sorley knew quite well that the VC would not disappear (their political apparatus
was still in place) and that the NVA would not simply pack up and return north. Sorley's book
"A Better War" contemplates a BETTER FINAL POLITICAL SETTLEMENT as part of the bottom line,
not US troops marching triumphantly into downtown Hanoi, as PAVN armies scurried away into
the jungle.
To his disappointment, Daddis also discovered that the only Vietnam War book included
was Sorley's A Better War. This should have surprised no one, since his argument –
that American soldiers in Vietnam were denied an impending victory by civilian
policymakers, a liberal media, and antiwar protestors – was still resonant among the
officer corps in year six of the Iraq quagmire. It wasn't the military's fault!
Keep in mind that Daddis wrote a book on the Vietnam War called 'No Sure Victory' in which
he pins US failure on not being versed ENOUGH on hearts and minds counterinsurgency war,
hence the reliance on massive and unworkable statistical and reporting systems of
"progress."
"The army's unpreparedness for counterinsurgency in the early 1960s surely encouraged
this confusion. Conventional officers had little experience in developing a
counterinsurgency reporting system and applying it within a larger strategic context.. So
it was for the U.S. Army in Vietnam. Insufficiently versed in the mysteries of
counterinsurgency, officers turned to statistics to assist them in measuring and reporting
progress and effectiveness. Statistics, though, bred more statistics, and the MACV
headquarters soon became awash in a flood of numbers, facts, and figures."
–Daddis, No Sure Victory
but also potential dangers in such lists as they inevitably influence the thinking of
an entire generation of future leaders. In the case of Vietnam, the perils are obvious. The
generals have been assigning and reading problematic books for years, works that were
essentially meant to reinforce professional pride in the midst of a series of unsuccessful
and unending wars.
You are barking up the wrong tree somewhat. Daddis laments reading list limitations as far
as Iraq, but the reading list did not make any difference given 3 issues:
(a) the decision to go to war in Iraq, when it was not necessary
(b) the woefully inadequate number of troops provided the commanders for conquest and
occupation and
(c) the cavalier, careless nature of planning for postwar Iraq.
What was or was not on the reading list is of limited impact given these 3 big realities
the civilian leadership saddled commanders with.
The question is, how much longer will European workers remain peaceful dissenters to 'laws'
that resemble the prohibition of Unions in NS-Germany? A number of member states are
threatening their own exit from the EU, although for entirely different reasons. But more
"Exit"-Nations will weaken neo-liberal EU to the much desirable breaking point.
As it stands, EU/NATO policies are the biggest threat to European citizens.
"... Like the Romans, we have become an empire, committed to fighting for scores of nations, with troops on every continent and forces in combat operations of which the American people are only vaguely aware. "I didn't know there were 1,000 troops in Niger," said Senator Lindsey Graham when four Green Berets were killed there. "We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily, and what we're doing." ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
Forward Operating Base Torkham, in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan (army.mil) If Turkey is not bluffing, U.S. troops in Manbij, Syria,
could be under fire by week's end, and NATO engulfed in the worst crisis in its history.
Turkish President Erdogan said Friday his forces will cleanse Manbij of Kurdish fighters, alongside whom U.S. troops are embedded.
Erdogan's foreign minister demanded concrete steps by the United States to end its support of the Kurds, who control the Syrian
border with Turkey east of the Euphrates all the way to Iraq.
If the Turks attack Manbij, America will face a choice: stand by our Kurdish allies and resist the Turks, or abandon the Kurds.
Should the U.S. let the Turks drive the Kurds out of Manbij and the entire Syrian border area, as Erdogan threatens, American
credibility would suffer a blow from which it would not soon recover.
But to stand with the Kurds and oppose Erdogan's forces could mean a crackup of NATO and a loss of U.S. bases inside Turkey, including
the air base at Incirlik.
Turkey also sits astride the Dardanelles entrance to the Black Sea. NATO's loss would thus be a triumph for Vladimir Putin, who
gave Ankara the green light to cleanse the Kurds from Afrin.
Yet Syria is but one of many challenges facing U.S. foreign policy.
The Winter Olympics in South Korea may have taken the menace of a North Korean ICBM out of the news, but no one believes that
threat is behind us.
Last week, China charged that the USS Hopper, a guided missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal,
a reef in the South China Sea claimed by Beijing, though it is far closer to Luzon in the Philippines. The destroyer, says China,
was chased off by one of her frigates. If we continue to contest China's territorial claims with our warships, a clash is inevitable.
In a similar incident Monday, a Russian military jet came within five feet of a U.S. Navy EP-3 Orion surveillance jet in international
airspace over the Black Sea, forcing the Navy plane to end its mission.
U.S. relations with Cold War ally Pakistan are at rock bottom. In his first tweet of 2018, President Trump charged Pakistan with
being a false friend.
"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given
us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools," Trump declared. "They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt
in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
As for America's longest war in Afghanistan, now in its 17th year, the end is nowhere on the horizon. A week ago, the International
Hotel in Kabul was attacked and held for 13 hours by Taliban gunmen who killed 40. Midweek, a Save the Children facility in Jalalabad
was attacked by ISIS, creating panic among aid workers across the country.
Saturday, an ambulance exploded in Kabul, killing 103 people and wounding 235. Monday, Islamic State militants attacked Afghan
soldiers guarding a military academy in Kabul. With the fighting season two months off, U.S. troops will not soon be departing. If
Pakistan is indeed providing sanctuary for the terrorists of the Haqqani network, how does this war end successfully for the United
States? Last week, in a friendly fire incident, the U.S.-led coalition killed 10 Iraqi soldiers. The Iraq war began 15 years ago.
Yet another war, where the humanitarian crisis rivals Syria, continues on the Arabian Peninsula. There, a Saudi air, sea, and
land blockade that threatens the Yemeni people with starvation has failed to dislodge Houthi rebels who seized the capital Sanaa
three years ago. This weekend brought news that secessionist rebels, backed by the United Arab Emirates, seized power in Yemen's
southern port of Aden from the Saudi-backed Hadi regime fighting the Houthis. These rebels seek to split the country, as it was before
1990.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE appear to be backing different horses in this tribal-civil-sectarian war into which America has
been drawn. There are other wars -- Somalia, Libya, Ukraine -- where the U.S. is taking sides, sending arms, training troops, flying
missions.
Like the Romans, we have become an empire, committed to fighting for scores of nations, with troops on every continent and
forces in combat operations of which the American people are only vaguely aware. "I didn't know there were 1,000 troops in Niger,"
said Senator Lindsey Graham when four Green Berets were killed there. "We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily,
and what we're doing."
No, we don't, Senator. As in all empires, power is passing to the generals. And what causes the greatest angst today in the imperial
city? Fear that a four-page memo worked up in the House Judiciary Committee may discredit Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia-gate.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President
and Divided America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists,
visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
"... The plundering of Greece is so huge that the Greek people don't realize it. Tsipras doesn't wear a tie. He was going to stop imperialism. But Tsipras works for them. Do you remember? There was a finance minister who rode around on a motorcycle. An academic. They got rid of him. I mentioned that on this programme in the past. They will sack that Greek finance minister and then Greece will sign the agreement with the INF. I said it. When they had got rid of the finance minister they brought an Englishman and the Englishman became a minister of the Greek government and they signed. We said that on our programme here before it happened. ..."
"... The imperialist model hasn't changed. Countries get into debt. They sink into crisis. The property of the people is transferred and after that they simply change the government. The same thing happened in Turkey in 2001. They sent Kemal Derviş to Turkey to put things in order for the imperialists. They appointed him Roman governor in Turkey. But fortunately Devlet Bahçeli was found to spoil their game for them," ..."
"... Erdoğan's advisor stated, and continued: "I feel sorry for the Greeks. They ..."
Greece will be in a "non-functional condition" until 2020, predicts the advisor to the
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Yiğit Bulut, who characterizes the Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras as a "tool of the imperialists".
Speaking on the state television programme "Deep Analysis" he gave the example of Greece to
show the consequences of imperialism for global political developments.
"They sold off everything. The banks have passed into the hands of the Germans. They have
been left with nothing. People in Greece wait for products from Germany and Italy. There is a
film about 300 Spartans who fall heroically in battle. Those 300 of Leonidas should come back
to Greece now, because nothing has remained standing.
The plundering of Greece is so huge that the Greek people don't realize it. Tsipras
doesn't wear a tie. He was going to stop imperialism. But Tsipras works for them. Do you
remember? There was a finance minister who rode around on a motorcycle. An academic. They got
rid of him. I mentioned that on this programme in the past. They will sack that Greek finance
minister and then Greece will sign the agreement with the INF. I said it. When they had got rid
of the finance minister they brought an Englishman and the Englishman became a minister of the
Greek government and they signed. We said that on our programme here before it
happened.
The imperialist model hasn't changed. Countries get into debt. They sink into crisis.
The property of the people is transferred and after that they simply change the government. The
same thing happened in Turkey in 2001. They sent Kemal Derviş to Turkey to put things in
order for the imperialists. They appointed him Roman governor in Turkey. But fortunately Devlet
Bahçeli was found to spoil their game for them,"Erdoğan's advisor stated,
and continued: "I feel sorry for the Greeks. Theyarevictimsofimperialism."
The above declaration by the Turkish official was made to the Turkish state television. It
was translated for DDP from the Greek sites that reproduced it, under the headline "Erdogan's
advisor makes provocative declarations".
Turkey still occupies a large part of Cyprus after having invaded the island in 1974 and
expelled more than 200,000 Greeks from their homes. It has territorial claims on Greek Aegean
islands and deploys the world's largest fleet of landing craft some miles from them. The
Turkish National Assembly has voted a resolution threatening Greece with war in the event of
use by Athens of its right to expand Greek territorial waters to 12 miles. It is only natural
that Greeks do not much appreciate a Turkish official speaking of their country in this way. It
is indeed a "provocation" from the point of view of rules of diplomatic behavior, given that
Mr. Erdogan is preparing his visit to Greece.
Of course Greeks know only too well that the description of the Turkish official is quite
close to the truth. It is probable that the advisor of the Turkish President does not so much
have the intention of provoking Greeks as influencing Turkish politics by showing his public
opinion what happens to a country that surrenders to "Western Imperialism".
There is a deep irony to Turkey depicting, as it does here, the EU, Germany, the Eurozone,
NATO and big finance destroying a member-state of the EU, and using this argument
rhetorically!
Remember how the USA ignited the Ukraine to punish the Russians for their thwarting of the
planned US attack on Syria? Well, the very same Ukraine has recently passed a law abolishing
the "anti-terrorist operation" in the Donbass and declaring the Donbass "occupied territory".
Under Ukie law, Russia is now officially an "aggressor state". This means that the Ukronazis
have now basically rejected the Minsk Agreements and are in a quasi-open state of war with
Russia. The chances of a full-scale Ukronazi attack on the Donbass are now even higher then
before, especially before or during the soccer World Cup in Moscow this summer (remember
Saakashvili?). Having been ridiculed (again) with their Border Security Force in Syria, the US
Americans will now seek a place to take revenge on the evil Russkies and this place will most
likely be the Ukraine. And we can always count the Israelis to find a pretext to continue to
murder Palestinians and bomb Syria. As for the Saudis, they appear to be temporarily busy
fighting each other. So unless the Empire does something really crazy, the only place it can
lash out with little to lose (for itself) is the eastern Ukraine. The Novorussians understand
that. May God help them.
Saker, interesting analysis. 1 tiny point of criticism:
Remember how the USA ignited the Ukraine to punish the Russians for their thwarting of
the planned US attack on Syria?
If I am not mistaken the CIA fomented "Orange revolution" in Ukraine was in 2014, whereas
Russia stepped into the Syrian war in 2015. So in the quoted sentence, it seems you got the
sequence of events back to front.
Ha-ha! Goddam Russkies scorched the Amero-ISIS arse and now Russo-Turks are gaslighting the
Kurds and their ten 'Murican lilypads. It's time for a diversionary Great Patriotic Ukrainian
War, just as soon as Porko sobers up.
What occurred in 2014 was the Maidan psy-op. As far as I recall, the only thing
significant that happened in Ukraine in 2010 was the election of Yanukovych.
In an article about Syria, Russia is omnipresent and the article ends by talking about
Ukraine. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that Putin has painted himself into a
corner in both places. He is irreversibly bogged down in Syria and any deal he makes with the
Kurds will just bog him down even more. Putin is a sitting duck. The US can lower the boom on
him at any time by relaunching the war and there's nothing he can do about it. And, of
course, the author makes clear that all this is "about" Ukraine. Syria is a proxy war. But in
Ukraine also, Putin has painted himself into a corner. He can't go forward, he can't go
backwards and he can't stay where he is!
Looks to me like he has done very well, the Ukraine is a basket case, surviving on little
more than borrowed money(I see on the QT that they are back to having to buy coal from Russia
AGAIN) and sooner rather than later there will be another coup as they find that even the EU
don';t want them.Syria why does he need to make a deal with the Kurd's for they are not his
problem,if anyone makes a deal with the Kurd's it will have be Syria,as far as that little
chunk we carved out just what good is it landlocked with no access to a water port,as normal
your trolling along with the mighty U.S. which is little more than a paper tiger with its
involvement in Afghanistan Africa and other places of interest as it tries to save what can't
be saved,the EMPIRE
I am not sure there is any evidence that Pres Putin needs t do anything.
He has no intention of raking the Ukraine. Not an issue. He's responding the consequences
of a western incited violent revolution that spun out of control -- and is protecting "ethnic
Russians" a dynamic that plagues Europe and Asia.
In Syria he is not launching a campaign of conquest but supporting. Anyone who thinks
Russia is caught in a vice is sorely mistaken. I can see from the comments that
misunderstanding the motivations of pothers remains in play and that is not encouraging.
Yo be clear, I have full faith of US might. we can bring a formidable amount of force on
any situation -- it's frightening, just how formidable we are. The question remains
first should we
second how long we need to sustain it
third tested against multiple adversaries (of our own making) in multiple locations
fourth tested against other modern states who themselves have engaged in tech superior
forces
fifth the strategic advantages -- short verses long term
Just because one can -- doesn't . . .
Nor am I ignoring that we have allies willing to take on Russia, but when push comes to
shove . . . who knows. I think we are the ones getting played and as for trapped -- and
bogged down --
"... at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack ..."
"... Return to Moscow ..."
"... The demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia is where the neocons and the liberal interventionists most significantly come together. The U.S. media's approach to Russia is now virtually 100 percent propaganda. For instance, the full story of the infamous Magnitsky case cannot be told in the West, nor can the objective reality of the Ukrane coup in 2014 . The American people and the West in general are carefully shielded from hearing the "other side of the story." Indeed to even suggest that there is another side to the story makes you a "Putin apologist" or "Kremlin stooge." ..."
The claim of Russian meddling in the US election has brought US-Russia relations to what may
be an all-time low, substantially contributing to the near-universal demonization of Russian
president Vladimir Putin and of Russia itself in virtually all major media, with little or no
discussion of the supposed evidence for the claim. A stellar exception is the London Review
of Books, which published a critically important essay by Rutgers University professor
Jackson Lears in the January 4, 2018 issue. Titled "What We Don't Talk about When We Talk about
Russian Hacking," the article is an excellent overview and analysis of many of the issues the
title suggests.
The claim of Russian meddling in the election remains to this day
evidence-free, although you would never know that from the treatment of the topic in the
mainstream media. As Professor Lears observes:
Like any orthodoxy worth its salt, the religion of the Russian hack depends not on
evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and
their overlords. Its scriptural foundation is a confused and largely fact-free 'assessment'
produced last January by a small number of 'hand-picked' analysts – as James Clapper,
the director of National Intelligence, described them – from the CIA, the FBI and the
NSA. The claims of the last were made with only 'moderate' confidence. The label Intelligence
Community Assessment creates a misleading impression of unanimity, given that only three of
the 16 US intelligence agencies contributed to the report. And indeed the assessment itself
contained this crucial admission: 'Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof
that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is
often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation and precedents.' Yet the
assessment has passed into the media imagination as if it were unassailable fact, allowing
journalists to assume what has yet to be proved. In doing so they serve as mouthpieces for
the intelligence agencies, or at least for those 'hand-picked' analysts.
But although Professor Lears refers to the reports of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity in his discussion of "Russian hacking," it seems clear there must have been a leak, not
a hack, because "the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds
an Internet capability for a remote hack ." ("Was the 'Russian Hack' An Inside Job?", July
25, 2017, https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/25/was-the-russian-hack-an-inside-job/
.)
In any case, definitive claims about who was responsible (assuming, purely arguendo
, it was a hack) face the fact that, according to Ray McGovern and William S. Binney, two
members of VIPS,
McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years; Binney worked for NSA for 36 years, was the
agency's technical director of world military and geopolitical analysis and reporting, and
created many of the collection systems still used by NSA.
In other words, as Russian president Vladimir Putin has explained,
today's technology is such that the final address can be masked and camouflaged to an
extent that no one will be able to understand the origin of that address. And, vice versa, it
is possible to set up any entity or any individual [so] that everyone will think that they
are the exact source of that attack. (Valdimir Putin's televised interview on NBC (June 4,
2017), by NBC News' Megyn Kelly, text published on the website of the President of
Russia, June 5, 2017.)
[9]
Demonization of Putin and Russia
The demonization of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russia itself is just part, albeit
the most dangerous part, of a disinformation campaign flowing from the mainstream media. I
don't propose to present a full treatment of the subject here. But in broad outline, it's my
understanding that when the Cold War ended in 1991, Russian president Boris Yeltsin accepted
the advice of Western neoliberal planners and dismantled much of the Russian "safety net," with
the result that the Russian economy tanked and millions of people faced terrific hardship.
Vladimir Putin has been attempting to repair that situation, and his initial success is part of
the reason for his popularity in Russia. That understanding comes from a number of articles
I've read over the years, but primarily from Tony Kevin's book Return to Moscow ,
mentioned above. I'm hardly an expert on internal Russian politics. But I've read many of the
extensive public statements Mr. Putin has made since 2007, and with my primary concern being
his role in international relations and with respect to the control of Russia's nuclear
arsenal, he strikes me as a statesman.
[10] . Yet as investigative journalist Robert Parry observes,
The demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia is where the neocons and
the liberal interventionists most significantly come together. The U.S. media's approach to
Russia is now virtually 100 percent propaganda. For instance, the full story of the
infamous
Magnitsky case cannot be told in the West, nor can the objective reality of the Ukrane
coup in 2014 . The American people and the West in general are carefully shielded from
hearing the "other side of the story." Indeed to even suggest that there is another side to
the story makes you a "Putin apologist" or "Kremlin stooge."
Western journalists now apparently see it as their patriotic duty to hide key facts that
otherwise would undermine the demonizing of Putin and Russia. Ironically, many "liberals" who
cut their teeth on skepticism about the Cold War and the bogus justifications for the Vietnam
War now insist that we must all accept whatever the U.S. intelligence community feeds us,
even if we're told to accept the assertions on faith.
[11] .
One result is a needless heightening of the dangers and risks outlined in this article.
"... For Germany, the idea of Europeanism has provided the country's elites with the perfect alibi to conceal their hegemonic project behind the ideological veil of 'European integration' ..."
"... "That may sound absurd given that today's Germany is a successful democracy without a trace of national-socialism – and that no one would actually associate Merkel with Nazism. But further reflection on the word 'Reich', or empire, may not be entirely out of place. The term refers to a dominion, with a central power exerting control over many different peoples. According to this definition, would it be wrong to speak of a German Reich in the economic realm?" ..."
"... More recently, an article in Politico Europe ..."
"... Even though the power exercised by Europe's 'colonial masters' is now openly acknowledged by the mainstream press, it is however commonplace to ascribe Germany's dominant position as an accident of history: according to this narrative, we are in the presence of an 'accidental empire', one that is not the result of a general plan but that emerged almost by chance – even against ..."
"... Germany (and France) have been the main beneficiaries of the sovereign bailouts of periphery countries , which essentially amounted to a covert bailout of German (and French) banks, as most of the funds were channelled back to the creditor countries' banks, which were heavily exposed to the banks (and to a lesser degree the governments) of periphery countries. German policy, Helen Thompson wrote , overwhelmingly 'served the interests of the German banks'. ..."
"... This is a telling example of how Germany's policies (and the EU's policies more in general), while nominally ordoliberal – i.e., based upon minimal government intervention and a strict rules-based regime – are in reality based on extensive state intervention on behalf of German capital, at both the domestic and European level. ..."
"... German authorities have also been more than happy to go along with – or to encourage – the European institutions' 'exercise of unrestrained executive power and the more or less complete abandonment of strict, rules-based frameworks' – Storey is here referring in particular to the ECB's use of its currency-issuing monopoly to force member states to follows its precepts – 'to maintain the profitability of German banks, German hegemony within the Eurozone, or even the survival of the Eurozone itself'. ..."
"... Germany (and France) are also the main beneficiaries of the ongoing process of 'mezzogiornification' of periphery countries – often compounded by troika -forced privatisations –, which in recent years has allowed German and French firms to take over a huge number of businesses (or stakes therewithin) in periphery countries, often at bargain prices. A well-publicised case is that of the 14 Greek regional airports taken over by the German airport operator Fraport. ..."
"... France's corporate offensive in Italy is another good example: in the last five years, French companies have engaged in 177 Italian takeovers, for a total value of $41.8 billion, six times Italy's purchases in France over the same period. This is leading to an increased 'centralisation' of European capital, characterised by a gradual concentration of capital and production in Germany and other core countries – in the logistical and distribution sectors, for example – and more in general to an increasingly imbalanced relationship between the stronger and weaker countries of the union. ..."
"... In short, the European Union should indeed be viewed a transnational capitalist project, but one that is subordinated to a clear state-centred hierarchy of power, with Germany in the dominant position. In this sense, the national elites in periphery countries that have supported Germany's hegemonic project (and continue to do so, first and foremost through their support to European integration) can thus be likened to the comprador bourgeoisie ..."
"... Exportnationalismus' ..."
"... Modell Deutschland ..."
"... Even more worryingly, Germany is not simply aiming at expanding its economic control over the European continent; it is also taking steps for greater European military 'cooperation' – under the German aegis, of course. As a recent article in Foreign Policy ..."
"... In other words, Germany already effectively controls the armies of four countries. And the initiative, Foreign Policy ..."
Originally from: Germany's dystopian plans for Europe: from fantasy to reality?By Thomas
Fazi 4 December 2017
For Germany, the idea
of Europeanism has provided the country's elites with the perfect alibi to conceal their
hegemonic project behind the ideological veil of 'European integration'
After Emmanuel Macron's election in France, many (including myself) claimed that this
signalled a revival of the Franco-German alliance and a renewed impetus for Europe's process of
top-down economic and political integration – a fact that was claimed by most
commentators and politicians, beholden as they are to the Europeanist narrative, to be an
unambiguously positive development.
Among the allegedly 'overdue' reforms that were said to be on the table was the creation of
a pseudo-'fiscal union' backed by a (meagre) 'euro budget', along with the creation of a
'European finance minister', the centre-points of Macron's plans to 're-found the EU' – a
proposal that raises a number of very worrying issues from both political and economic
standpoints,
which I have discussed at length elsewhere .
The integrationists' (unwarranted) optimism, however, was short-lived. The result of the
German elections, which saw the surge of two rabidly anti-integrationist parties, the
right-wing FDP and extreme right AfD; the recent collapse of coalition talks between Merkel's
CDU, the FDP and the Greens, which most likely means an interim government for weeks if not
months, possibly leading to new elections (which polls show would
bring roughly the same result as the September election); and the growing restlessness in
Germany towards the 13-year-long rule of Macron's partner in reform Angela Merkel, means that
any plans that Merkel and Macron may have sketched out behind the scenes to further integrate
policies at the European level are now, almost certainly, dead in the water. Thus, even the
sorry excuse for a fiscal union proposed by Macron is now off the table, according to most
commentators.
At this point, the German government's most likely course in terms of European policy
– the one that has the best chance of garnering cross-party support, regardless of the
outcome of the coalition talks (or of new elections) – is the 'minimalist' approach set
in stone by the country's infamous and now-former finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, in
a 'non-paper' published shortly
before his resignation.
The main pillar of Schäuble's proposal – a long-time obsession of his –
consists in giving the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which would go on to become a
'European Monetary Fund', the power to monitor (and, ideally, enforce) compliance with the
Fiscal Compact. This echoes Schäuble's previous calls for the
creation of a European budget commissioner with the power to reject national budgets – a
supranational fiscal enforcer.
The aim is all too clear: to further erode what little sovereignty and autonomy member
states have left, particularly in the area of fiscal policy, and to facilitate the imposition
of neoliberal 'structural reforms' – flexibilisation of labour markets, reduction of
collective bargaining rights, etc. – on reluctant countries.
To this end, the German authorities even want to make the receipt of EU cohesion funds
conditional on the implementation of such reforms , tightening the existing arrangements
even further. Moreover, as noted by Simon
Wren-Lewis , the political conflict of interest of having an institution lending within the
eurozone would end up imposing severe austerity bias on the recovering country.
Until recently, these proposals failed to materialise due, among other reasons, to France's
opposition to any further overt reductions of national sovereignty in the area of
budgetary policy; Macron, however, staunchly rejects France's traditional
souverainiste stance, embracing instead what he calls 'European sovereignty', and thus
represents the perfect ally for Germany's plans.
Another proposal that goes in the same direction is the
German Council for Economic Experts' plan to curtail banks' sovereign bond holdings.
Ostensibly aimed at 'severing the link between banks and government' and 'ensuring long-term
debt sustainability', it calls for: (i) removing the exemption from risk-weighting for
sovereign exposures, which essentially means that government bonds would no longer be
considered a risk-free asset for banks (as they are now under Basel rules), but would be
'weighted' according to the 'sovereign default risk' of the country in question (as determined
by credit rating agencies); (ii) putting a cap on the overall risk-weighted sovereign exposure
of banks; and (iii) introducing an automatic 'sovereign insolvency mechanism' that would
essentially extend to sovereigns the bail-in rule introduced for banks by the banking union,
meaning that if a country requires financial assistance from the ESM, for whichever reason, it
will have to lengthen its sovereign bond maturities (reducing the market value of those bonds
and causing severe losses for all bondholders) and, if necessary, impose a nominal 'haircut' on
private creditors.
As noted by the German economist Peter Bofinger , the only member of the German Council of
Economic Experts to vote against the sovereign bail-in plan, this would almost certainly ignite
a 2012-style self-fulfilling sovereign debt crisis, as periphery countries' bond yields would
quickly rise to unsustainable levels, making it increasingly hard for governments to roll over
maturing debt at reasonable prices and eventually forcing them to turn to the ESM for help,
which would entail even heavier losses for their banks and an even heavier dose of
austerity.
It would essentially amount to a return to the pre-2012 status quo, with governments once
again subject to the supposed 'discipline' of the markets, particularly in the context of a
likely tapering of the ECB's quantitative easing (QE) program. The aim of this proposal is the
same as that of Schäuble's 'European Monetary Fund': to force member states to implement
permanent austerity.
Of course, national sovereignty in a number of areas – most notably fiscal policy
– has already been severely eroded by the complex system of new laws, rules and
agreements introduced in recent years, including but not limited to the six-pack, two-pack,
Fiscal Compact, European Semester and Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure (MIP).
As a result of this new post-Maastricht system of European economic governance, the European
Union has effectively become a sovereign power with the authority to impose budgetary rules and
structural reforms on member states outside democratic procedures and without democratic
control.
The EU's embedded quasi-constitutionalism and inherent (structural) democratic deficit has
thus evolved into an even more anti-democratic form of 'authoritarian constitutionalism' that
is breaking away with elements of formal democracy as well, leading some observers to suggest
that the EU 'may easily become the postdemocratic prototype and even a pre-dictatorial
governance structure against national sovereignty and democracies'.
To give an example, with the launch of the European Semester, the EU's key tool for economic
policy guidance and surveillance, an area that has historically been a bastion of national
sovereignty – old-age pensions – has now fallen under the purview of supranational
monitoring as well. Countries are now expected to
(and face sanctions if they don't): (i) increase the retirement age and link it with life
expectancy; (ii) reduce early retirement schemes, improve the employability of older workers
and promote lifelong learning; (iii) support complementary private savings to enhance
retirement incomes; and (iv) avoid adopting pension-related measures that undermine the long
term sustainability and adequacy of public finances.
This has led to the introduction in various countries of several types of automatic
stabilizing mechanisms (ASMs) in pension systems, which change the policy default so that
benefits or contributions adjust automatically to adverse demographic and economic conditions
without direct intervention by politicians. Similar 'automatic correction mechanisms' in
relation to fiscal policy can be found in the Fiscal Compact.
The aim of all these 'automatic mechanisms' is clearly to put the economy on 'autopilot',
thus removing any element of democratic discussion and/or decision-making at either the
European or national level. These changes have already transformed European states into
'semi-sovereign' entities, at best. In this sense, the proposals currently under discussion
would mark the definitive transformation of European states from semi-sovereign to de
facto (and increasingly de jure ) non-sovereign entities.
Regardless of the lip service paid by national and European officials to the need for
further reductions of national sovereignty to go hand in hand with a greater 'democratisation'
of the euro area, the reforms currently on the table can, in fact, be considered the final
stage in the thirty-year-long war on democracy and national sovereignty waged by the European
elites, aimed at constraining the ability of popular-democratic powers to influence economic
policy, thus enabling the imposition of neoliberal policies that would not have otherwise been
politically feasible.
In this sense, the European economic and monetary integration process should be viewed, to a
large degree, as a class-based and inherently neoliberal project pursued by all
national capitals as well as transnational (financial) capital. However, to grasp the processes
of restructuring under way in Europe, we need to go beyond the simplistic capital/labour
dichotomy that underlies many critical analyses of the EU and eurozone, which view EU/EMU
policies as the expression of a unitary and coherent transnational (post-national) European
capitalist class.
The process underway can only be understood through the lens of the geopolitical-economic
tensions and conflicts between leading capitalist states and regional blocs, and the
conflicting interests between the different financial/industrial capital fractions located in
those states, which have always characterised the European economy. In particular, it means
looking at Germany's historic struggle for economic hegemony over the European continent.
It is no secret that Germany is today the leading economic and political power in Europe,
just as it is no secret that nothing gets done in Europe without Germany's seal of approval. In
fact, it is commonplace to come across references to Germany's 'new empire'.
A controversial Der Spiegel editorial from a few years back event went as far as
arguing that it is not out place to talk of the rise of a 'Fourth Reich':
"That may sound absurd given that today's Germany is a successful democracy without a trace
of national-socialism – and that no one would actually associate Merkel with Nazism. But
further reflection on the word 'Reich', or empire, may not be entirely out of place. The term
refers to a dominion, with a central power exerting control over many different peoples.
According to this definition, would it be wrong to speak of a German Reich in the economic
realm?"
More recently, an article in
Politico Europe – co-owned by the German media magnate Axel Springer AG
– candidly explained why 'Greece is de facto a German colony'. It noted how, despite
Tsipras' pleas for debt relief, the Greek leader 'has little choice but to heed the wishes of
his "colonial" masters', i.e., the Germans.
This is because public debt
in the eurozone is used as a political tool – a disciplining tool – to get
governments to implement socially harmful policies (and to get citizens to accept these
policies by portraying them as inevitable), which explains why Germany continues to refuse to
seriously consider any form of debt relief for Greece, despite the various commitments and
promises to that end made in recent years: debt is the chain that keeps Greece (and other
member states) from straying 'off course'.
Even though the power exercised by Europe's 'colonial masters' is now openly acknowledged by
the mainstream press, it is however commonplace to ascribe Germany's dominant position as an
accident of history: according to this narrative, we are in the presence of an 'accidental
empire', one that is not the result of a general plan but that emerged almost by chance –
even against Germany's wishes – as a result of the euro's design faults, which
have allowed Germany and its satellites to pursue a neo-mercantilist strategy and thus
accumulate huge current account surpluses.
Now, it is certainly true that the euro's design – strongly influenced by Germany
– inevitably benefits export-led economies such as Germany over more internal
demand-oriented economies, such as those of southern Europe. However, there is ample evidence
to support the argument that Germany, far from having accidently stumbled upon European
dominance, has been actively and consciously pursuing an expansionary and imperialist strategy
in – and through – the European Union for decades.
Even if we limit our analysis to Germany's post-crisis policies (though there is much that
could be said about Germany's post-reunification policies and subsequent offshoring of
production to Eastern Europe in the 1990s), it would be very naïve to view Germany's
inflexibility – on austerity, for example – as a simple case of ideological
stubbornness, considering the extent to which the policies in question have benefited Germany
(and to a lesser extent France).
Germany (and France) have been
the main beneficiaries of the sovereign bailouts of periphery countries , which essentially
amounted to a covert bailout of German (and French) banks, as most of the funds were channelled
back to the creditor countries' banks, which were heavily exposed to the banks (and to a lesser
degree the governments) of periphery countries. German policy, Helen Thompson wrote ,
overwhelmingly 'served the interests of the German banks'.
This is a telling example of how Germany's policies (and the EU's policies more in general),
while nominally ordoliberal – i.e., based upon minimal government intervention
and a strict rules-based regime – are in reality based on extensive state
intervention on behalf of German capital, at both the domestic and European level.
As Andy Storey notes, not only did the German government, throughout the crisis, show a
blatant disregard for ordoliberalism's non-interference of public institutions in the workings
of the market, by engaging in a massive Keynesian-style programme in the aftermath of the
financial crisis and pushing through bailout programmes that largely absolved German banks from
their responsibility for reckless lending to Greece and other countries; German authorities
have also been more than happy to go along with – or to encourage – the European
institutions' 'exercise of unrestrained executive power and the more or less complete
abandonment of strict, rules-based frameworks' – Storey is here referring in particular
to the ECB's use of its currency-issuing monopoly to force member states to follows its
precepts – 'to maintain the profitability of German banks, German hegemony within the
Eurozone, or even the survival of the Eurozone itself'.
Germany (and France) are also the main beneficiaries of the ongoing process of
'mezzogiornification' of periphery countries – often compounded by troika
-forced privatisations –, which in recent years has allowed German and French firms to
take over a huge number of businesses (or stakes therewithin) in periphery countries, often at
bargain prices. A well-publicised case is that of the 14 Greek regional airports taken over by
the German airport operator Fraport.
France's corporate offensive in Italy is another good example: in the last five years,
French companies have engaged in 177 Italian takeovers, for a total value of $41.8 billion, six
times Italy's purchases in France over the same period. This is leading to an increased
'centralisation' of European capital, characterised by a gradual concentration of capital and
production in Germany and other core countries – in the logistical and distribution
sectors, for example – and more in general to an increasingly imbalanced relationship
between the stronger and weaker countries of the union.
These transformations cannot simply be described as processes without a subject: while there
are undoubtedly structural reasons involved – countries with better developed economies
of scale, such as Germany and France, were bound to benefit more than others from the reduction
in tariffs and barriers associated with the introduction of the single currency – we also
have to acknowledge that there are loci of economic-politic power that are actively driving and
shaping these imperialist processes, which must be viewed through the lens of the unresolved
inter-capitalist struggle between core-based and periphery-based capital.
From this perspective, the dichotomy that is often raised in European public discourse
between nationalism and Europeanism is deeply flawed. The two, in fact, often go hand in hand.
In Germany's case, for example, Europeanism has provided the country's elites with the perfect
alibi to conceal their hegemonic project behind the ideological veil of 'European integration'.
Ironically, the European Union – allegedly created as an antidote to the vicious
nationalisms of the twentieth century – has been the tool through which Germany has been
able to achieve the 'new European order' that Nazi ideologues had theorised in the 1930s and
early 1940s.
In short, the European Union should indeed be viewed a transnational capitalist project, but
one that is subordinated to a clear state-centred hierarchy of power, with Germany in the
dominant position. In this sense, the national elites in periphery countries that have
supported Germany's hegemonic project (and continue to do so, first and foremost through their
support to European integration) can thus be likened to the comprador bourgeoisie of
the old colonial system – sections of a country's elite and middle class allied with
foreign interests in exchange for a subordinated role within the dominant hierarchy of
power.
From this point of view, the likely revival of the Franco-German bloc is a very worrying
development, since it heralds a consolidation of the German-led European imperialist bloc
– and a further 'Germanification' of the continent. This development cannot be understood
independently of the momentous shifts that are taking place in global political economy –
namely the organic crisis of neoliberal globalisation, which is leading to increased tensions
between the various fractions of international capital, most notably between the US and
Germany.
Trump's repeated criticisms of Germany's beggar-thy-neighbour mercantilist policies should
be understood in this light. The same goes for Angela Merkel's recent call – much
celebrated by the mainstream press – for a stronger Europe to counter Trump's
unilateralism. Merkel's aim is not, of course, that of making 'Europe' stronger, but rather of
strengthening Germany's dominant position vis-à-vis the other world powers (the US but
also China) through the consolidation of Germany's control of the European continental economy,
in the context of an intensification of global inter-capitalist competition.
This has now become an imperative for Germany, especially since Trump has dared to openly
challenge the self-justifying ideology which sustains Germany's mercantilism – a
particular form of economic nationalism that Hans Kundnani has
dubbed ' Exportnationalismus' , founded upon the belief that Germany's massive
trade surplus is uniquely the result of Germany's manufacturing excellence ( Modell
Deutschland ) rather than, in fact, the result of unfair trade practices.
This is why, if Germany wants to maintain its hegemonic position on the continent, it must
break with the US and tighten the bolts of the European workhouse. To this end, it needs to
seize control of the most coveted institution of them all – the ECB –, which
hitherto has never been under direct German control (though the Bundesbank exercises
considerable influence over it, as is well known). Indeed, many commentators openly acknowledge
that Merkel now has her eyes on the ECB's presidency. This would effectively put Germany
directly at the helm of European economic policy.
Even more worryingly, Germany is not simply aiming at expanding its economic control over
the European continent; it is also taking steps for greater European military 'cooperation'
– under the German aegis, of course.
As a recent article in Foreign Policy revealed , 'Germany is quietly building a
European army under its command'.
This year Germany and two of its European allies, the Czech Republic and Romania, announced
the integration of their armed forces, under the control of the Bundeswehr. In doing so, the
will follow in the footsteps of two Dutch brigades, one of which has already joined the
Bundeswehr's Rapid Response Forces Division and another that has been integrated into the
Bundeswehr's 1st Armored Division.
In other words, Germany already effectively controls the armies of four countries. And the
initiative, Foreign Policy notes, 'is likely to grow'. This is not surprising: if
Germany ('the EU') wants to become truly autonomous from the US, it needs to acquire military
sovereignty, which it currently lacks.
Europe is thus at a crossroads: the choice that left-wing and popular forces, and periphery
countries more generally, face is between (a) accepting Europe's transition to a fully
post-democratic, hyper-competitive, German-led continental system, in which member states
(except for those at the helm of the project) will be deprived of all sovereignty and autonomy,
in exchange for a formal democratic façade at the supranational level, and its workers
subject to ever-growing levels of exploitation; or (b) regaining national sovereignty and
autonomy at the national level, with all the short-term risks that such a strategy entails, as
the only way to restore democracy, popular sovereignty and socioeconomic dignity. In short, the
choice is between European post-democracy or post-European democracy.
There is no third way. Especially in view of the growing tensions between Germany, the US
and China, periphery countries should ask themselves if they want to be simple pawns in this
'New Great Game' or if they want to take their destinies into their own hands.
"... Imagine a Russia in which Putin was no longer around and the hawks, with plenty of stored up grievances, were in power. The Russians have their neocons too and if they came out on top we'd be worse off than now ..."
"... The European elites wish to see Europe as a world power. Unrealistic, perhaps, but say that entity did become a dominant force. They complain about the lack of democratic control in the States, but that's nothing to the lack of democratic control in Europe. And we've already seen what the Europeans, including us, are capable of when it comes to predatory foreign intervention. Give the Europeans enough things that go bang and we could be yearning for the good old days. ..."
Babak - "The only sensible thing to do is to cut and run; in my opinion. Just work through
the implications as US cuts and run in the Levant, in the Persian Gulf, in South Korea."
As you point out, that could have unexpected effects. We saw what happened when a previous
dominant power - Great Britain, though by no means as overwhelmingly dominant and not at all
so at the end - effectively cut and ran after the Second World War. It ended up more of a
mess than it started out as.
Even in an ideal world, a world in which the current style of Great Power politics was
universally abandoned, the sudden withdrawal of the US would cause instability and chaos. The
disengagement would have to be gradual.
But there is no such ideal world as that and there will not be. Therefore the sudden
withdrawal of the US would leave a power vacuum that others would fill.
What others? Imagine a Russia in which Putin was no longer around and the hawks, with
plenty of stored up grievances, were in power. The Russians have their neocons too and if
they came out on top we'd be worse off than now .
The European elites wish to see Europe as a world power. Unrealistic, perhaps, but say
that entity did become a dominant force. They complain about the lack of democratic control
in the States, but that's nothing to the lack of democratic control in Europe. And we've
already seen what the Europeans, including us, are capable of when it comes to predatory
foreign intervention. Give the Europeans enough things that go bang and we could be yearning
for the good old days.
I'm one of those that still hope that the non-interventionist policy that was voted for in
America in 2016 will be carried through. But if that is indeed Trump's intention then there
is more in his way than local political or administrative difficulties. To engineer such a
transition would require great care. It's no good if the US just steps back and worse comes
forward to take its place.
It's not overly idealistic, or even that unrealistic, to hope for a world in which defense
forces (AND defensive alliances) are used for the proper purpose of defence and not for
expensive and destructive enterprises dreamed up by some bubble elite. That's part of what
Trump 2016 was about. But getting to such a world would require a considerably more careful
transition than we've seen in similar circumstances in the past.
There are some analogies here with the recent Poroshenko government desire to take Donbass area back by military force.
Notable quotes:
"... How will this breakup of Syrian national territory affect the situation between the Donbass region and the Ukraine junta? ..."
"... True and very sad. The Syrians have been caught in the crossfire since the beginning. We have theorized over the various causes of the war, but, in the end, when the superpowers are hanging around, Syrians are the first row of pieces to be sacrificed. ..."
"... The Afrin war plays several roles. It will demonize and demoralize further the 'independentist' Kurds, awake the nationalist Turkish feeling by displaying military power that has been damaged by the coup, boost the Islamist flame among the rural Turks so the Turks can forget about their grudge over the EU and the declining buying power. ..."
"... All the actors are tributaries flowing into the main river, and all moving in the same general direction, because the river is actually the tide of history. All players are advancing to meet their inevitable destinie ..."
Let me see if I understand all this? The Erdogan Turks fully back the terrorists in Syria
aiming to dislodge the Assad Syrian government. The USA et al fully backs the same.
The USA also backs the PKK/YPG Kurd faction in Syria as a means to at least break up
Syrian national territory, as originally in their plans, even if they do remove the Assad
government as originally planned.
Erdogan has wanted to expand Turkey's national boundaries at the expense of Syria's. This
latest encroachment, as with Euphrates Shield, accomplishes this goal especially if they can
subsume their terrorist proxies occupied areas in Idlib Province as the USA has by using
their newest Kurd proxies in eastern Syria. Erdogan need only create some new proxy
(Turkmen?) and go after the terrorists and Kurds in western Syria. No doubt with American
help.
Erdogan and the USA disagree only on what future the Kurdish people will play in the
eastern territories of Syria and Turkey. So what will be the necessary accommodation between
them?
If a Kurdish state is declared and backed by NATO and a UN resolution what if anything can
Syria and her allies do about it as war is simply out of the question.
How will this breakup of Syrian national territory affect the situation between the
Donbass region and the Ukraine junta?
This would not be some devious plot by Turks/US to prolong the war in Syria and give cover to
send more troops in ... troops that never leave? The whole thing seems a bit too ...
convenient.
True and very sad. The Syrians have been caught in the crossfire since the beginning.
We have theorized over the various causes of the war, but, in the end, when the superpowers
are hanging around, Syrians are the first row of pieces to be sacrificed.
And I would never put my faith in any international community ruling after Syria. We are
in uncharted territory, I believe. Dance with the one you came with and if you have to stand
on Putin's toes to keep up, then hold him close.
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong
do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." -- Thucydides
"These oilfields seem to be the big prize and one of the main reasons the US wants to hold
onto this corner of Syria."
Posted by: financial matters | Jan 21, 2018 10:37:30 AM | 18
The goal of the MIC and Deep State is just to keep the chaos going as long as possible to
sell arms and benefit careers. However, Trump has been enticed to go along with it by the
promise that the US will "take their oil."
You may be correct that those Kurds aren't Syrian, but not necessarily so. The areas of
Syria that have actually had Kurdish, or for instance Armenian, majorities have enjoyed a
large measure of de facto autonomy, which has only increased in the last 20 years. So while
nominally required to use Arabic in schools, if the school is staffed with Kurdish teachers
and administrators with Kurdish students, there is little to stop them from simply teaching
in Kurdish. Or Armenian, or Aramaic, etc.
We had wrongly predicted that Turkish threats against the Kurdish held north-west area of
Afrin were empty:
Maybe not. Maybe your first analysis was correct. If the Kurdish militias do fight, it will
take many weeks, and lead to substantial Turkish losses. So it is really too early to say
that Erdogan will attempt to conquer Afrin no matter the cost, and too early to say that the
US will not put effective pressure on Erdogan, or offer him some sort of deal.
So far, Erdogan has upped the ante, but he hasn't gone all in.
Erdogan is obsessed by keeping power and winning his re election in 2018 or 2019 . To get
that, he needs to neutralize the Turkish Kurds who don't vote for him. Sunni conservative
Kurds worship Erdogan for his promotion of Sunni Islam. For them Islam is the unifying factor
of Turks especially Sunni Islam. They all vote for the AKP.
Erdogan has emasculated the burgeoning liberal Kurdish party, the HDP, by demonizing the
liberal Kurds and throwing its leader in prison just to get more votes in the previous
parliamentary election that he reran to win with a very small margin.
For the next election, he is very worried about the growth of other centrist parties, the
weakness of his ally the MHP, a nationalist party archi-enemy of the Kurds and about the
insatisfaction of the Turks with the deteriorating relation with the EU and the fall of the
lira.
The Afrin war plays several roles. It will demonize and demoralize further the
'independentist' Kurds, awake the nationalist Turkish feeling by displaying military power
that has been damaged by the coup, boost the Islamist flame among the rural Turks so the
Turks can forget about their grudge over the EU and the declining buying power.
The question is will he win fast enough not to create the impression of failure and a
quagmire that would reflect negatively on his voters? And what will be the aftermath of
Afrin? early elections?
It's a multiple win-win, a great demonstration of congruent interests all doing their own
thing. Lots of things remain to play out. But there are no downsides to this situation, no
matter who holds what piece of Syrian territory for what temporary short time.
All the actors are tributaries flowing into the main river, and all moving in the same
general direction, because the river is actually the tide of history. All players are
advancing to meet their inevitable destinies: Turkey moves closer to Russia, and closer,
despite much bad blood, to restoring the friendship between itself and Syria (over time); the
Kurds get their final lesson about the perfidious US and settle into their lands in Syria, as
Syrians; Dr. Assad gets his entire country back for his people (over time); terrorists die;
the US is further marginalized and its generals scream mayhem, in words only.
The Ukrainian Parliament has practically declared
the Minsk agreements null and void and decided to militarily "liberate" Donetsk, Lugansk and
Crimea from the will of the people living there. Just in time the neo-nazi fanatics of the Azov
Battalion
received a U.S. military delegation and U.S. arms.
The 2015 Minsk II agreement (
full text ) demanded that the Ukraine creates a new law for the administration of these
regions:
Without delays, but no later than 30 days from the date of signing of this document, a
resolution has to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, indicating the territory
which falls under the special regime in accordance with the law "On temporary Order of Local
Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts," based in the line
set up by the Minsk Memorandum as of Sept. 19, 2014.
Russia is not a party of the agreement. But when the resolution by the Ukrainian parliament
was not forthcoming western propaganda falsely blamed Russia for "not fulfilling the Minsk
agreement" and the west has since bound the sanctions on Russia to this fake conclusion.
The National Bank of Ukraine announced
that an independent accountant found that PrivatBank, then owned by the coup financier and
billionaire
Ihor Kolomoyskiy , was plundered of $5.5 billion shortly before it went bankrupt and
nationalized by the coup government. In connection with that an IMF loan of $1.8 billion to the
Ukraine
allegedly went directly into Kolomoyskiy's pockets. How much of this stolen money was paid
to U.S. politicians?
While the anti-Trump politicians and media still fret about "Russian influence" on U.S.
social media everyone seems to have forgotten that in early 2016 the Ukraine set up a massive
troll farm and a Ministry of Truth. Back then even the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine
disliked that . If every troll tweeting in Russian or with Cyrillic letters in its name is
under the direct command of Vladimir Putin where then are those Ukrainians trolls?
The last round in Ukraine erupted while the winter games finished in Sochi. I see the
empire positioning things to repeat the treatment during FIFA. Ukraine is being primed and
the clock is set to create incidents that will force Russia's hand.
This potential very public shaming of Russia is what is restraining Russia from responding
to many of the US and Israeli (and Turkish?) provocations in Syria. Perhaps they are hoping
their present silence will gain them some grace for that showcase event.
Personally, I doubt it.
And should some incidents happen during the FIFA world cup events, we will see the real
Putin - which might be for the best in the long run.
re:?The Ukrainian Parliament has practically declared the Minsk agreements null and void and
decided to militarily "liberate" Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea from the will of the people
living there. Just in time the neo-nazi fanatics of the Azov Battalion received a U.S.
military delegation..."
And also just in time Russia is voting on legalizing militias in Africa and elsewhere; just
in time for Spring in the Ukraine? http://russiafeed.com/russia-legalize-private-military-contractors-get-leg-africa/
I'm curious about Ukraine & its neo-nazi's. How do the Israelis who work there, knowing
the past-present? After all, mention the word nazi in their presence, and they go out of
their collective minds attacking the source. Or maybe there's some sort of collusion taking
place?
I'm in the UK as well and now find it quite alarming how the BBC shapes the news.
Recently on Radio 4 I listened to the BBC talking of a terrorist group related to or derived from Al Qaeda merely as "rebels",
and giving the impression that their actions were part of a legitimate insurgency. That's not how 9/11 was described.
It's all too like the BBC's Ukraine reporting, in which the neo-Nazi component was played down and the indiscriminate shelling
of civilian areas in Donetsk and Lugansk spoken of as legitimate warfare.
Crazy. And not only the PR. All those journalists and expensive editors and more admin staff than you can shake a stick at,
and there's more fact to be got on some one man and a dog Russian news outlet. I heard recently of an old BBC hand describing
the way the BBC changed after David Kelly. What with that and what with the material we now see put out by the BBC, I reckon that
as far as foreign news goes we've got ourselves our very own Pravda on the Thames.
"... The grand history of Latin America: borrow billions of $$$ from U.S. banks, hand the money to the wealthy who immediately deposit it right back in American banks, and let the poor pay back the principal and interest. Hmmm . seems more and more the way this country is going. ..."
"... The fixed exchange rate under Kirchner was totally unsustainable. One difference between Macri's neoliberalism and his predecessors is Macri is allowing much more of a floating currency than in the pre 2001 time period (We can debate how much it is actually is floating and clearly a lot of this debt issuance is for currency stabilization that I personally don't approve of). ..."
"... Brazil's recent neoliberal turn was frustrating for a variety of reasons, but being a big, diverse economy, they've got more sovereignty than their neighbors. However, the business and political elites in Brazil decided to hammer through austerity (spending cuts and interest rate hikes) because they WANTED to, not because external forces made them do it. ..."
by lan Cibils and Mariano Arana, Political Economy Department, Universidad Nacional de
General Sarmiento, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Originally published at Triple Crisis
In Argentina's 2015 presidential run-off election, the neoliberal right-wing coalition
"Cambiemos" (literally, "lets change"), headed by Mauricio Macri, defeated the populist
Kirchnerista candidate by just two percentage points. Macri's triumph heralded a return to the
neoliberal policies of the 1990s and ended twelve years of heterodox economic policies that
prioritized income redistribution and the internal market. The ruling coalition also performed
well in the October 2017 mid-term elections and has since begun implementing a draconian set of
fiscal, labor, and social security reforms.
One of the hallmarks of the Cambiemos government so far has been a fast and furious return
to international credit markets and a very substantial increase in new public debt. Indeed,
since Macri came to power in 2015, Argentina has issued debt worth more than $100 billion. This
marks a clear contrast to the Kirchner administrations, during which the emphasis was debt
reduction.
The Kirchner Years: Debt Reduction?
Both Néstor and Cristina Kirchner pointed to desendeudamiento -- debt
reduction -- as one of the great successes of their administrations. To what extent was debt
reduced during the twelve years of Kirchnerismo?
Figure 1 shows the evolution of Argentina's public debt stock and the debt/GDP ratio between
2004-2017. One can see that there was a substantial reduction in the debt to GDP ratio between
2004-2011 -- the first two Kirchner terms -- due primarily to: a) the 2005 and 2010 debt
restructuring offers, b) a deliberate policy of desendedudamiento (debt cancellation),
and c) high growth rates. Indeed, debt/GDP dropped from 118.1% in 2004 to 38.9% in 2011. One
can also see that the actual stock of public debt fell after the 2005 debt restructuring
process, and then remained relatively stable until 2010. In 2011, it began a slow upward trend,
due to the re-appearance of the foreign exchange constraint once the commodity bubble burst and
capital flight increased.
Figure 1: Public Debt Stock (millions of dollars) and Debt/GDP ratio
Source: Ministry of Finance, Argentina.
An additional, fundamental change occurred during the first two Kirchner administrations:
the change in currency composition of Argentina's public debt. Indeed, as Figure 2 shows,
peso-denominated public debt reached 41% of total debt after the 2005 debt-restructuring
process. Between 2005 and 2012 it remained relatively stable, and then, after 2012,
dollar-denominated public debt began to grow again although never reaching pre-2005
debt-restructuring levels. The currency composition change is key, since it reduces
considerably the pressure on the external accounts.
Figure 2: Currency Composition of Argentina's Public Debt (as a % GDP)
Source: Ministry of Finance, Argentina.
Fast and Furious
Since Macri became president in December 2015, there has been a dramatic change in official
public debt strategy, radically reversing the process of debt reduction of the previous decade.
As shown in Figure 1, there was a substantial jump in the stock of public debt in 2016, and it
has continued to grow in 2017.The result to date has been a substantial increase in the stock
of Argentina's dollar-denominated public debt, as well as an increase of the debt service to
GDP ratio. New debt has been used to cover the trade deficit, pay off the vulture funds,
finance capital flight, and meet debt service payments. All of this has resulted in growing
concerns about Argentina's future economic sustainability, not to mention any possibility of
promoting economic development objectives.
Upon taking office, the Macri Administration rapidly implemented a series of policies to
liberalize financial flows and imports, and a 40% devaluation of the Argentine peso. [1] In
this context, it also went on a debt rampage, increasing dollar denominated debt considerably.
Between December 2015 and September 2017, Argentina's new debt amounts to the equivalent of
$103.59 billion. [2] This includes new
debt issued by the Treasury (80%), provincial governments (11%), and the private sector (9%).
While Argentina's debt had been increasing slowly since 2011, the jump experienced in 2016 was
unlike any other in Argentina's history.
If the increase in debt is alarming, the destination of those funds is also cause of
concern. Data from Argentina's Central Bank (Banco Central de la República Argentina or
BCRA) show that during the first eight months of 2017, net foreign asset accumulation of the
private non-banking sector totaled $13.32 million, 33% more than all of 2016, which itself was
17% more than all of 2015. This means that since December 2015, Argentina has dollarized assets
by approximately $25.29 billion.
According to the BCRA, during the same period there was a net outflow of capital due to debt
interest payments, profits and dividends of $8.231 billion. Additionally, the net outflow due
to tourism and travel is calculated at roughly $13.43 billion between December 2015 and August
2017.
In sum, the dramatic increase in dollar-denominated debt during the two first Macri years
served to finance capital flight, tourism, profit remittances, and debt service, all to the
tune of roughly $50 billion.
Where is This Headed?
Argentina's experience since the 1976 military coup until the crash of 2001 has shown how
damaging is the combination of unfavorable external conditions and the destruction of the local
productive structure. The post-crisis policies of the successive Kirchner administrations
reversed the debt-dependent and deindustrializing policies of the preceding decades. However,
since Macri took office in December 2015, Argentina has once again turned to debt-dependent
framework of the 1990s. Not only has public debt grown in absolute terms, but the weight of
dollar-denominated debt in total debt has also increased. Despite significant doubts regarding
the sustainability of the current situation, the government has expressed intentions of
continuing to issue new debt until 2020.
What are the main factors that call debt-sustainability into question? First, capital
flight, which, as we have said above, is increasing, is compensated with new dollar-denominated
public debt. Second, Argentina's trade balance turned negative in 2015 and has remained so
since, with a total accumulated trade deficit between 2015 and the second quarter of 2017 of
$6.53 billion. Import dynamics proved impervious to the 2016 recession, therefore it is
expected that the deficit will either persist as is or increase if there are no drastic
changes. Furthermore, in the 2018 national budget bill sent to Congress, Treasury Secretary
Nicolás Dujovne projects that the growth rate of imports will exceed that of exports
until at least 2021, increasing the current trade deficit by 68%.
Finally, according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook (October 2017), growth rate
projections for industrialized countries increase prospects of a US Federal Reserve interest
rate increase. This would make Argentina's new debt issues more expensive, increasing the
burden of future debt service and increasing capital flight from Argentina (in what is
generally referred to as the "flight to safety").
The factors outlined above generate credible and troublesome doubts about the sustainability
of the economic policies implemented by the Macri administration. While there are no signs of a
major crisis in the short term (that is, before the 2019 presidential elections), there are
good reasons to doubt that the current level of debt accumulation can be sustained to the end
of a potential second Macri term (2023). In other words, there are good reasons to believe that
Argentines will once again have to exercise their well-developed ability to navigate through
yet another profound debt crisis. This is not solely the authors' opinion. In early November
2017 Standard & Poor's placed Argentina in a list of the five most fragile economies.
[3] It looks like,
once again, storm clouds are on the horizon.
'What are the main factors that call debt sustainability into question? First, capital
flight.'
Capital flees Argentina whenever the opportunity arises because successive governments --
whether leftist or conservative -- refuse to control inflation and maintain a stable
currency.
Since 2001, the Argentine peso has slid from one-to-one with the US dollar to about 19 to
the dollar today. With Argentine inflation running in the low to mid twenties (according to
INDEC and Price Stats), the peso can be expected to carry on weakening against the dollar
indefinitely.
A hundred years during which the peso has lopped off thirteen (13) zeros owing to chronic
inflation shows that Argentina is politically and culturally incapable of responsibly
managing its own currency.
Argentines know this. Unfortunately, only the richer ones have assets they can move to
safety outside the country. The hand-to-mouth poor will continue being ravaged by inflation,
not to mention the large quantities of counterfeit pesos in circulation.
Letting Argentines play with fiat currency is like handing out loaded pistols to rowdy
5-year-olds. In both these sad cases, adult supervision is urgently needed.
The grand history of Latin America: borrow billions of $$$ from U.S. banks, hand the
money to the wealthy who immediately deposit it right back in American banks, and let the
poor pay back the principal and interest. Hmmm . seems more and more the way this country is
going.
The fixed exchange rate under Kirchner was totally unsustainable. One difference between
Macri's neoliberalism and his predecessors is Macri is allowing much more of a floating
currency than in the pre 2001 time period (We can debate how much it is actually is floating
and clearly a lot of this debt issuance is for currency stabilization that I personally don't
approve of).
I'm not an expert in this at all, but in Peru, you could hold bank accounts in either
national currency or dollars. The national currency accounts spared you currency exchange
fees and also had higher interest rates. Most people who could hedged their bets by putting
money in both accounts.
It seems like a happy medium between abandoning national currencies and letting savers get
ravaged? No?
While not as spectacular of a return as Bitcoin, but impressive nonetheless, the escape
route for an Argentinean @ the turn of the century was the golden rule, an ounce of all that
glitters was 300 pesos then and now around 25,000 pesos, a most excellent 'troy' horse.
So, is austerity good or is austerity bad? And in what conditions?
I'm for expansionary government expense (and direct government ownership of some
industries, such as with an NHS) balanced by taxes on high incomes.
So in my view the problem happens when the government lowers taxes on the rich, as seems
likely in this case.
On the other hand taxes on the rich are likely to cause capital flight.
So why did Macri get elected to do this? Yeah he didn't win by much, but he won.
>The hand-to-mouth poor will continue being ravaged by inflation
Which is freaking weird. Argentina has cropland. They have energy sources (and I won't
bore everybody ok, I will with the observation that the Industrial Age is generously a
300/8000 year ratio part of human history).
And doesn't the below need some unpacking?:
>only the richer ones have assets they can move to safety outside the country
What are these assets? Why are said assets mobile? How did they come to "own" them? What
percentage of the population is encompassed by "the richer ones" phrasing?
Question: why doesn't MMT thinking work for countries like Argentina?
As wikipedia notes:
"The key insight of MMT is that "monetarily sovereign government is the monopoly
supplier of its currency and can issue currency of any denomination in physical or
non-physical forms. As such the government has an unlimited capacity to pay for the things
it wishes to purchase and to fulfill promised future payments, and has an unlimited ability
to provide funds to the other sectors. Thus, insolvency and bankruptcy of this government
is not possible. It can always pay."
Is this a general flaw in MMT? Does MMT only apply to dominant nation-states like the
U.S., who can use foreign military and financial pressures to protect the currency, aka the
petrodollar? Is the petrodollar a true 'fiat currency' or is it somehow based on control of
commodities (especially oil)? Is there something peculiar about Argentina and other countries
facing currency devaluation that MMT doesn't handle well? Any ideas on this?
That wikipedia write up isn't wrong, but it could be better. Probably need to hammer home
the point that the sovereign can always pay IN THE CURRENCY THAT IT ISSUES.
Most of the MMT related conversations on this site, and the posts that are written up on
the subject are mostly about explaining how there are constraints that many people THINK
exist in the USA, but don't actually exist, at least in economic terms (political constraints
notwithstanding). A country cannot be forced to default on a currency it issues. If the USA
had significant debts in EUR or JPY, then it'd be a very different conversation.
External constraints are a big deal for most countries, especially developing countries
that depend on exports of primary commodities. Chile, for instance, is constrained by balance
of payments problems when the price of copper declines. Also, developed countries that are
relatively smaller have much more limited sovereignty. The Swiss Central Bank has to follow
what the ECB does, to a large degree.
On the other hand, there's episodes where some countries have found room for maneuver when
they give up their sovereign currency. I didn't expect that Ecuador's economy would perform
quite as well as it has in recent years. But, they've shown that you can find ways to get
creative to compensate for loss of monetary sovereignty. Of course, the fiscal constraints
are real since Ecuador can't print USD.
Brazil's recent neoliberal turn was frustrating for a variety of reasons, but being a
big, diverse economy, they've got more sovereignty than their neighbors. However, the
business and political elites in Brazil decided to hammer through austerity (spending cuts
and interest rate hikes) because they WANTED to, not because external forces made them do
it.
No doubt an MMT prescription for Argentina would advice them to lay off the $ denominated
debt and stick to pesos as much as possible. I'd imagine Stephanie Kelton or any of the UMKC
crew would advise curtailing imports or doing some import substitution in order to take
pressure off balance of payments issues. They'd also take a look at what was driving
inflation domestically and try to find ways to relieve it with a targeted approach, instead
of risking recession and unemployment. Neoliberal/Washington Consensus type economists would
say hike interest rates, cut government spending in order to curtail demand. They'd argue
that the private sector will make the best decisions about where to reign in spending to
reduce inflation.
"... Ukraine. Putin's remarks on the state of affairs in Ukraine are, of course, wholly at odds with what Washington puts out on the subject. But they are not at odds with reality: Washington is. ..."
"... Those terms remain Putin's point of reference. They appear to remain the European Union's, too. Washington, which the Europeans and Russia excluded from the Minsk talks for the wisest of reasons, does not seem to have a point of reference, busy as it is pretending there is progress on the corruption front and that Kiev is not dependent on a frightening collection of militias, many of them led by neo–Nazi fanatics. ..."
"... These groups still present the threat of a massacre in the eastern provinces, as Putin reminded his audience. He spoke with notable ease of Russian assistance in those regions, suggesting this can end when they are capable of self-defense. ..."
Ukraine. Putin's remarks on the state of affairs in Ukraine are, of course, wholly at
odds with what Washington puts out on the subject. But they are not at odds with reality:
Washington is. As Putin calmly noted, the number-one obstacle to a settlement in Ukraine
is, as it has been for three years come next February, the profoundly corrupt government
installed in Kiev after the American-cultivated coup in 2014.
I say three years next February because it was then the settlement framework known as Minsk
II (for the city where it was negotiated and signed) was put in place.
Those terms remain Putin's point of reference. They appear to remain the European
Union's, too. Washington, which the Europeans and Russia excluded from the Minsk talks for the
wisest of reasons, does not seem to have a point of reference, busy as it is pretending there
is progress on the corruption front and that Kiev is not dependent on a frightening collection
of militias, many of them led by neo–Nazi fanatics.
These groups still present the threat of a massacre in the eastern provinces, as Putin
reminded his audience. He spoke with notable ease of Russian assistance in those regions,
suggesting this can end when they are capable of self-defense.
We would do well to understand where the force of inertia lies in Ukraine. This was Putin's
topic. A settlement in Ukraine remains possible via the framework fixed three years ago. Let us
not forget this. Moscow has not deviated from Minsk II -- another point worth noting. The
spoilers are in Kiev, and behind them are those in Washington, which continues to encourage the
irresponsible behavior of the Poroshenko government and other Ukrainian elites.
"... What's puzzling is why that capacity for outrage and demand for accountability doesn't extend to our now well-established penchant for waging war across much of the planet. ..."
"... Compare their culpability to that of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or promoted this country's various military misadventures of the present century. Those wars have, of course, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will ultimately cost American taxpayers many trillions of dollars. Nor have those costly military efforts eliminated "terrorism," as President George W. Bush promised back when today's G.I.s were still in diapers. ..."
"... Bush told us that, through war, the United States would spread freedom and democracy. Instead, our wars have sown disorder and instability, creating failing or failed states across the Greater Middle East and Africa. In their wake have sprung up ever more, not fewer, jihadist groups, while acts of terror are soaring globally. These are indisputable facts. ..."
"... For starters, there is no "new strategy." Trump's generals, apparently with a nod from their putative boss, are merely modifying the old "strategy," which was itself an outgrowth of previous strategies tried, found wanting, and eventually discarded before being rebranded and eventually recycled. ..."
"... Thus far, Trump's interventionism has been a fragment of what the Hillary campaign promised. ..."
"... This is the center of a world empire. It maintains a gigantic military which virtually never stops fighting wars, none of them having anything to do with defense. It has created an intelligence monstrosity which makes old outfits like Stazi seem almost quaint, and it spies on everyone. Indeed, it maintains seventeen national security establishments, as though you can never have too much of a good thing. And some of these guys, too, are engaged full-time in forms of covert war, from fomenting trouble in other lands and interfering in elections to overthrowing governments. ..."
"... It's unlikely that the USA would be remaining in Afghanistan if its goals were not being attained. So the author has merely shown that the stated goals cannot be the real goals. What then are the real goals? I propose two: 1) establish a permanent military presence on a Russian border; 2) finance it with the heroin trade. Given other actions of the Empire around the globe, the first goal is obvious. The bombing of mud huts containing competitors' drug labs, conjoined with the fact that we do not destroy the actual poppy fields (obvious green targets in an immense ocean of brown) make this goal rather obvious as well. The rest of the article is simply more evidence that the Empire does not include mere human tragedy in its profit calculation. ..."
"... Andrew Bacevich calls for a Weinstein moment without realizing that it already happened more than ten years ago. The 2006 midterm elections were the first Weinstein moment, which saw the American people deliver a huge outpouring of antiwar sentiment that inflicted significant congressional losses on the neocon Republicans of George W. Bush. ..."
What makes a Harvey Weinstein moment? The now-disgraced Hollywood mogul is hardly the first
powerful man to stand accused of having abused women. The Harveys who preceded Harvey himself
are legion, their prominence matching or exceeding his own and the misdeeds with which they
were charged at least as reprehensible.
In the relatively recent past, a roster of prominent offenders would include Bill Clinton,
Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, and, of course, Donald Trump. Throw in various jocks,
maestros, senior military officers, members of the professoriate and you end up with quite a
list. Yet in virtually all such cases, the alleged transgressions were treated as instances of
individual misconduct, egregious perhaps but possessing at best transitory political
resonance.
All that, though, was pre-Harvey. As far as male sexual hijinks are concerned, we might
compare Weinstein's epic fall from grace to the stock market crash of 1929: one week it's the
anything-goes Roaring Twenties, the next we're smack dab in a Great Depression.
How profound is the change? Up here in Massachusetts where I live, we've spent the past year
marking John F. Kennedy's 100th birthday. If Kennedy were still around to join in the
festivities, it would be as a Class A sex offender. Rarely in American history has the cultural
landscape shifted so quickly or so radically.
In our post-Harvey world, men charged with sexual misconduct are guilty until proven
innocent, all crimes are capital offenses, and there exists no statute of limitations. Once a
largely empty corporate slogan, "zero tolerance" has become a battle cry.
All of this serves as a reminder that, on some matters at least, the American people retain
an admirable capacity for outrage. We can distinguish between the tolerable and the
intolerable. And we can demand accountability of powerful individuals and
institutions.
Everything They Need to Win (Again!)
What's puzzling is why that capacity for outrage and demand for accountability doesn't
extend to our now well-established penchant for waging war across much of the planet.
In no way would I wish to minimize the pain, suffering, and humiliation of the women preyed
upon by the various reprobates now getting their belated comeuppance. But to judge from
published accounts, the women (and in some cases, men) abused by Weinstein, Louis C.K., Mark
Halperin, Leon Wieseltier, Kevin Spacey, Al Franken, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Garrison
Keillor, my West Point classmate Judge Roy Moore, and their compadres at least managed
to survive their encounters. None of the perpetrators are charged with having committed murder.
No one died.
Compare their culpability to that of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or
promoted this country's various military misadventures of the present century. Those wars have,
of course, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will
ultimately cost American taxpayers many
trillions of dollars. Nor have those costly military efforts eliminated "terrorism," as
President George W. Bush promised back when today's G.I.s were still in diapers.
Bush told us that, through war, the United States would spread freedom and democracy.
Instead, our wars have sown disorder and instability, creating failing or failed states across
the Greater Middle East and Africa. In their wake have sprung up ever more, not fewer, jihadist
groups, while acts
of terror are soaring globally. These are indisputable facts.
It discomfits me to reiterate this mournful litany of truths. I feel a bit like the doctor
telling the lifelong smoker with stage-four lung cancer that an addiction to cigarettes is
adversely affecting his health. His mute response: I know and I don't care. Nothing the doc
says is going to budge the smoker from his habit. You go through the motions, but wonder
why.
In a similar fashion, war has become a habit to which the United States is addicted. Except
for the terminally distracted, most of us know that. We also know -- wecannot not
know -- that, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. forces have been unable to
accomplish their assigned mission, despite more than 16 years of fighting in the former and
more than a decade in the latter.
It's not exactly a good news story, to put it mildly. So forgive me for saying it (
yet again ), but most of us simply don't care, which means that we continue to allow a free
hand to those who preside over those wars, while treating with respect the views of pundits and
media personalities who persist in promoting them. What's past doesn't count; we prefer to
sustain the pretense that tomorrow is pregnant with possibilities. Victory lies just around the
corner.
By way of example, consider a
recent article in U.S. News and World Report. The headline: "Victory or Failure in
Afghanistan: 2018 Will Be the Deciding Year." The title suggests a balance absent from the text
that follows, which reads like a Pentagon press release. Here in its entirety is the nut graf
(my own emphasis added):
"Armed with a new strategy and renewed support from old allies, the Trump
administration now believes it has everything it needs to win the war in Afghanistan.
Top military advisers all the way up to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis say they can accomplish
what two previous administrations and multiple troop surges could not: the defeat of the
Taliban by Western-backed local forces, a negotiated peace and the establishment of a
popularly supported government in Kabul capable of keeping the country from once again becoming
a haven to any terrorist group."
Now if you buy this, you'll believe that Harvey Weinstein has learned his lesson and can be
trusted to interview young actresses while wearing his bathrobe.
For starters, there is no "new strategy." Trump's generals, apparently with a nod from their
putative boss, are merely modifying the old "strategy," which was itself an outgrowth of
previous strategies tried, found wanting, and eventually discarded before being rebranded and
eventually recycled.
Short of using nuclear weapons, U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan over the past decade and
a half have experimented with just about every approach imaginable: invasion, regime change,
occupation, nation-building, pacification, decapitation, counterterrorism, and
counterinsurgency, not to mention various surges ,
differing in scope and duration. We have had a big troop presence and a smaller one, more
bombing and less, restrictive rules of engagement and permissive ones. In the military
equivalent of throwing in the kitchen sink, a U.S. Special Operations Command four-engine prop
plane recently deposited the largest non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal on a cave
complex in eastern Afghanistan. Although that MOAB made a big
boom, no offer of enemy surrender materialized.
$65
billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. And under the circumstances, consider that a mere down
payment.
According to General John Nicholson, our
17th commander in Kabul since 2001, the efforts devised and implemented by his many
predecessors have resulted in a "stalemate" -- a generous interpretation given that the Taliban
presently controls more
territory than it has held since the U.S. invasion. Officers no less capable than Nicholson
himself, David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal among them, didn't get it done. Nicholson's
argument: trust me.
In essence, the "new strategy" devised by Trump's generals, Secretary of Defense Mattis and
Nicholson among them, amounts to this: persist a tad longer with a tad more. A modest uptick in
the number of U.S. and allied
troops on the ground will provide more trainers, advisers, and motivators to work with and
accompany their Afghan counterparts in the field. The Mattis/Nicholson plan also envisions an
increasing number of air strikes, signaled by the recent use of B-52s to attack illicit
Taliban "
drug labs ," a scenario that Stanley Kubrick himself would have been hard-pressed to
imagine.
Notwithstanding the novelty of using strategic bombers to destroy mud huts, there's not a
lot new here. Dating back to 2001, coalition forces have already dropped tens of thousands of
bombs in Afghanistan. Almost as soon as the Taliban were ousted from Kabul, coalition efforts
to create effective Afghan security forces commenced. So, too, did attempts to reduce the
production of the opium that has funded the Taliban insurgency, alas with essentially
no effect whatsoever . What Trump's generals want a gullible public (and astonishingly
gullible and inattentive members of Congress) to believe is that this time they've somehow
devised a formula for getting it right.
Turning the Corner
With his trademark capacity to intuit success, President Trump already sees clear evidence
of progress. "We're not fighting anymore to just walk around," he remarked in his
Thanksgiving message to the troops. "We're fighting to win. And you people [have] turned it
around over the last three to four months like nobody has seen." The president, we may note,
has yet to visit Afghanistan.
I'm guessing that the commander-in-chief is oblivious to the fact that, in U.S. military
circles, the term winning has acquired notable elasticity. Trump may think that it
implies vanquishing the enemy -- white flags and surrender ceremonies on the U.S.S. Missouri . General Nicholson knows better. "Winning," the field commander
says , "means delivering a negotiated settlement that reduces the level of violence and
protecting the homeland." (Take that definition at face value and we can belatedly move Vietnam
into the win column!)
Should we be surprised that Trump's generals, unconsciously imitating General William
Westmoreland a half-century ago, claim once again to detect light at the end of the tunnel? Not
at all. Mattis and Nicholson (along with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and National
Security Adviser H.R. McMaster) are following the Harvey Weinstein playbook: keep doing it
until they make you stop. Indeed, with what can only be described as chutzpah, Nicholson
himself recently announced that we have "
turned the corner " in Afghanistan. In doing so, of course, he is counting on Americans not
to recall the various war managers, military and civilian alike, who have made identical claims
going back years now, among them Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2012
.
From on high, assurances of progress; in the field, results that, year after year, come
nowhere near what's promised; on the homefront, an astonishingly credulous public. The war in
Afghanistan has long since settled into a melancholy and seemingly permanent rhythm.
The fact is that the individuals entrusted by President Trump to direct U.S. policy believe
with iron certainty that difficult political problems will yield to armed might properly
employed. That proposition is one to which generals like Mattis and Nicholson have devoted a
considerable part of their lives, not just in Afghanistan but across much of the Islamic world.
They are no more likely to question the validity of that proposition than the Pope is to
entertain second thoughts about the divinity of Jesus Christ.
In Afghanistan, their entire worldview -- not to mention the status and clout of the officer
corps they represent -- is at stake. No matter how long the war there lasts, no matter how many
"
generations " it takes, no matter how much blood is shed to no purpose, and no matter how
much money is wasted, they will never admit to failure -- nor will any of the
militarists-in-mufti cheering them on from the sidelines in Washington, Donald Trump not the
least among them.
Meanwhile, the great majority of the American people, their attention directed elsewhere --
it's the season for holiday shopping, after all -- remain studiously indifferent to the charade
being played out before their eyes.
It took a succession of high-profile scandals before Americans truly woke up to the plague
of sexual harassment and assault. How long will it take before the public concludes that they
have had enough of wars that don't work? Here's hoping it's before our president, in a moment
of ill temper, unleashes "
fire and fury " on the world.
It's astonishing to see people make the claim that "victory" is possible in Afghanistan.
Could they actually believe this or are they lying in order to drag this out even longer and
keep the money pit working overtime? These are individuals that are highly placed and so
should know better. It's not really a war but an occupation with the native insurgents
fighting to oust the foreign occupier. The US has tried every trick there is in trying to
tamp down the insurgency. They know what we're trying to do and can thwart us at every step.
The US lost even as it began it's invasion there but didn't know it yet in the wake of it's
initial success in scattering the Taliban, not even a real army and not even a real state.
They live there and we don't; they can resist for the next thirty years or fifty years. When
does the multi-billion bill come due and how will we pay it?
"How long will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that
don't work?"
It already happened, but Progressives like you failed to note that Republican voters
subbed the Bush clan and their various associates for Trump in the Primary season, precisely
because he called the Iraq and Afghan wars mistakes. The Americans suffer under a two party
establishment that is clearly antagonistic to their interests. As a part of that regime, a
dutiful Progressive toad, you continue to peddle the lie that it was the war-weary White
Americans who celebrated those wars. In reality, any such support was ginned up from tools
like you who wrote puff pieces for their Neocon Progressive masters.
Thus far, Trump's interventionism has been a fragment of what the Hillary campaign
promised. Might you count that among your lucky stars? Fat chance. You cretinous Progressive
filth have no such spine upon which to base an independent thought. You trot out the same old
tiresome tropes week after week fulfilling your designated propagandist duty and then you
skulk back to your den of iniquity to prepare another salvo of agitprop. What a miserable
existence.
This is the center of a world empire. It maintains a gigantic military which virtually never
stops fighting wars, none of them having anything to do with defense. It has created an
intelligence monstrosity which makes old outfits like Stazi seem almost quaint, and it spies
on everyone. Indeed, it maintains seventeen national security establishments, as though you
can never have too much of a good thing. And some of these guys, too, are engaged full-time
in forms of covert war, from fomenting trouble in other lands and interfering in elections to
overthrowing governments.
Obama ended up killing more people than any dictator or demagogue of this generation on
earth you care to name, several hundred thousand of them in his eight years. And he found new
ways to kill, too, as by creating the world's first industrial-scale extrajudicial killing
operation. Here he signs off on "kill lists," placed in his Oval Office in-box, to murder
people he has never seen, people who enjoy no legal rights or protections. His signed orders
are carried out by uniformed thugs working at computer screens in secure basements where they
proceed to play computer games with real live humans as their targets, again killing or
maiming people they have never seen.
If you ever have wondered where all the enabling workers came from in places like Stalin's
Gulag or Hitler's concentration camps, well, here is your answer. American itself produces
platoons of such people. You could find them working at Guantanamo and in the far-flung
string of secret torture facilities the CIA ran for years, and you could find them in places
like Fallujah or Samarra or Abu Ghraib, at the CIA's basement game arcade killing centers,
and even all over the streets of America dressed as police who shoot unarmed people every
day, sometimes in the back.
ZOG has now asserted the right to kill anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. No trial,
no hearing, no witnesses, no defense, no nothing. Is this actually legal? Any constitutional
lawyers out there care to comment? Has ZOG now achieved the status of an all-powerful
all-knowing deity with the power of life and death over all living things?
It's unlikely that the USA would be remaining in Afghanistan if its goals were not being
attained. So the author has merely shown that the stated goals cannot be the real goals. What
then are the real goals? I propose two: 1) establish a permanent military presence on a
Russian border; 2) finance it with the heroin trade. Given other actions of the Empire around
the globe, the first goal is obvious. The bombing of mud huts containing competitors' drug
labs, conjoined with the fact that we do not destroy the actual poppy fields (obvious green
targets in an immense ocean of brown) make this goal rather obvious as well. The rest of the
article is simply more evidence that the Empire does not include mere human tragedy in its
profit calculation.
The Native Born White American Working Class Teenage Male Population used as CANNON FODDER
for Congressman Steven Solarz's and Donald Trump's very precious Jewish only Israel .
Israel and the deep state did the attack on 911 and thus set the table for the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Syria and the Zionist neocons who control every facet of
the U.S. gov and the MSM and the MIC and the FED ie the BANKS set in motion the blood
sacrifice for their Zionist god SATAN, that is what they have done.
The Zionist warmongers and Satanists will destroy America.
It's not so much that America is addicted to war as that the American "business model" makes
permanent war inevitable. US global dominance rests on economic domination, in particular,
the dollar as world reserve currency. That has allowed the US economy to survive in spite of
being hollowed out, financialised and burdened with enormous sovereign debt. Economic
dominance derives from political dominance, which, in its turn, flows from military
dominance. For that military dominance to be credible, not only must the US have the biggest
and best military forces on the planet, it must show itself willing to use those forces to
maintain its dominance by actually using them from time to time, in particular, to
unequivocally beat off any challenge to its dominance (Putin!). It also, of course, must win,
or, more correctly, be able to present the outcome credibly as a win. Failure to maintain
military dominance will undermine the position of the dollar, sending its value through the
floor. A low dollar means cheap exports (Boeing will sell more planes than Airbus!), but it
also means that imports (oil, outsourced goods) will be dear. At that point the hollowed out
nature of the US economy will cut in, probably provoking a Soviet-style implosion of the US
economy and society and ruining anyone who has holdings denominated in dollars. I call that
the Gorbachev conundrum. Gorby believed in the Soviet Union and wanted to reform it. But the
Soviet system had become so rigid as to be unreformable. He pulled a threat and the whole
system unravelled. But if he hadn't pulled the thread, the whole system would have unravelled
anyway. It was a choice between hard landing and harder landing. Similarly, US leaders have
to continue down the only road open to them: permanent war. As Thomas Jefferson said of
slavery, it's like holding a wolf by the ears. You don't like it but you don't dare let go!
"How long will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that
don't work?" Answer: Never.
In Alabama when people would rant about how toxic Roy Moore was, I would politely point
out that his opponent for Senate was OK with spending trillions of dollars fighting pointless
winless wars on the other side of the planet just so politically connected defense
contractors can make a buck, and ask if that should be an issue too? The response,
predictably, was as if I was an alien from the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda.
We are sheep. We are outraged at these sexual transgressions because the corporate press
tells us to be outraged. We are not outraged at these stupid foreign wars, because the
corporate press does not tell us to be outraged. It's all mass effect, and the comfort of
being in a herd and all expressing the same feelings.
Andrew Bacevich is wrong about a couple of things in this article.
First, he says that the American public is both apathetic and credulous. I agree
that we have largely become apathetic towards these imperial wars, but I disagree that we
have become credulous. In fact, these two states of mind exclude one another; you cannot be
both apathetic and credulous with respect to the same object at the same time. The credulity
charge is easy to dismiss because virtually no one today believes anything that comes out of
Washington or its mouthpieces in the legacy media. The apathy charge is on point but it needs
qualification. The smarter, more informed Americans have seen that their efforts to change
the course of American policy have been to no avail, and they've given up in frustration and
disgust. The less smart, less informed Americans are constrained by the necessity of getting
on with their meager lives; they are an apolitical mass that possesses neither the
understanding nor the capacity to make any difference on the policy front whatsoever.
Second,Andrew Bacevich calls for a Weinstein moment without realizing that it
already happened more than ten years ago. The 2006 midterm elections were the first Weinstein
moment, which saw the American people deliver a huge outpouring of antiwar sentiment that
inflicted significant congressional losses on the neocon Republicans of George W. Bush. An
echo of that groundswell happened again in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected to office on an
explicitly antiwar platform. But Obama turned out to be one of the most pro-war presidents
ever, and thus an angry electorate made one final push in the same direction by attempting to
clean house with Donald Trump. Now that Donald has shown every sign of having cucked out to
the war lobby, we seem to be left with no electoral solutions.
The only thing that's going to work is for the American Imperium to be handed a
much-deserved military and financial defeat. The one encouraging fact is that if the top ten
percent of our political and financial elite were planed off by a foreign power, the American
people would give as few damns about that as they currently do about our imperial wars.
Very good but some little errors. Concerning Russia and China, Russia vent all or
nothing.
China was much smarter. First they allowed self employment, than small business and long time
after they started to sell state enterprises,
If Tom's Dispatch continues to be successful, Americans will continue to be asleep.
Masterful propaganda. War, according to our favorite spooks, is necessary to win, but
otherwise reprehensible.
Sex is otherwise necessary for human life but Harvey Weinstein is ugly. Hold tightly to
your cognitive dissonance, because you're expected to remember John F Kennedy who got it on,
but is the expendable martyr you should care about, not that other guy
Let's review: terror attacks are wins. Superior or effective anti-war propaganda comes
from the military
itself. They really don't want war, but really they do.
We're trying to make Afghanistan not Afghanistan: aka, trying to be a miracle worker. We
can throw as much money as we like at that place, and it isn't going to happen, least of all
with troops on nine month shifts.
Let Iran and Pakistan squabble over it. Good riddance.
1) doesn't really make much sense, given that Poland and the Baltic States would be more
than happy to take all US forces in Europe to give us a presence near Russia in a part of the
world that would be far easier to justify to the American public-and to the international
community. Afghanistan? Who exactly is Russia going to mess with? Iran is their-for now,
longer term, the two have conflicting agendas in the region, but don't expect the geniuses in
the Beltway to pick up on that opportunity-ally, and unlike the USSR, the Russians don't want
to get involved in the India-Pakistan conflict. Russia's current tilt toward China makes a
strategic marriage with India of the kind that you found in the Cold War impossible, but they
obviously don't want to tilt toward the basketcase known as Pakistan. The only reason that
Russia would want to get involved with Afghanistan beyond having a more preferable status
than having American troops there is power projection among ex-Soviet states, and there are
far more effective ways to do than muddle about with Afghanistan.
2, on the other hand, given Iran-Contra who knows? The first generation of the Taliban
pretty much wiped the heroin trade out as offensive to Islamic sensibilities, but the newer
generations have no such qualms.
I think you give America's rulers far too much credit. The truth is probably far scarier:
the morons who work in the Beltway honestly believe their own propaganda-that we can make
Afghanistan into some magical Western democracy if we throw enough money at it-and combine
that with the usual bureaucratic inertia.
According to General John Nicholson, our 17th commander in Kabul since 2001,
We have been killing these people for 17 years. Now our generals say that if we
indiscriminately kill enough men, women, and children who get in the way of our B52s, that
they will see the light and make peace. How totally wonderful.
My solution is to gage the Lindsey Grahams for a year.
What will do more good for peace – B52s or shutting up Graham's elk?
I remember when Trump said he knew more than the generals and was viciously attacked for it.
It turns out he did know more than the generals just by knowing it was a waste. Trump was
pushed by politics to defer to the generals who always have an answer when it comes to a war
– more men, more weapons, more time.
"The less smart, less informed Americans are constrained by the necessity of getting on
with their meager lives; they are an apolitical mass that possesses neither the understanding
nor the capacity to make any difference on the policy front whatsoever."
I wonder if any Abolitionists criticized the slaves for failing to revolt? Probably not;
I'm guessing they were mostly convinced that the negro required intervention from outside,
whether due to their nature or from overwhelming circumstance.
If the enslaved American public is liberated, I hope we'll know what to do with ourselves
afterwards. It'd be a shame to simply end up in another kind of bondage, resentful and
subject to whatever oppressive system replaces the current outrage. Perhaps the next one will
more persuasively convince us that we're important and essential?
We are sheep. We are outraged at these sexual transgressions because the corporate press
tells us to be outraged. We are not outraged at these stupid foreign wars, because the
corporate press does not tell us to be outraged. It's all mass effect, and the comfort of
being in a herd and all expressing the same feelings.
Thank you, Andrew J. Bacevich, for your words of wisdom and thank you, Mr. Unz, for this
post.
This corporation needs to be dissolved. I've read about "the inertia" of Federal Government
that has morphed into a cash cow for a century of wasted tax dollars funding the MIIC, now
the MIIC. Does our existence have to end in financial ruin or, worse yet, some foreign entity
creating havoc on our soil?
The Founders NEVER intended that the US of A become a meddler in other Sovereignty's internal
affairs or the destroyer of Nation States that do not espoused our "doctrine." Anyone without
poop for brains knows that this is about Imperialism and greed, fueled by money and an
insatiable luster for MORE.
This should be easier to change than it appears. Is there no will? After all, it Is our
Master's money that lubricates the machinery. So, we continue to provide the lubrication for
our Masters like a bunch of imbeciles that allow them to survail our words and movements.
Somebody please explain our stupidity.
the folks in the US are sick of the wars, contrary to Bacevich. They simply will vote come
next election accordingly. They register their disgust in all the polls.
This article is not very useful. More punditry puff.
No comments on the Next War for Israel being cooked up by the new crop of neocon
youngsters, I guess, and Trump who will trump, trump, trump into the next War for the
Jews.
How about some political science on Iran, Syria, Hisbollah, Hamas and the US, Arabia,
Judenstaat axis of evil?
Hey Bacevich? When you link to WashPost and NYTimes to make your points, you don't. They
block access if you've already read links to those two papers three times each and can no
longer, for the month, read there. When folks link to papers that won't let you read, it
makes one wonder why.
I believe Americans are damned sick and tired of the stupid, needless war in Afghanistan. But
then they should have been sick and tired of stupid , needless wars like Korea, Vietnam and
Iraq, and probably most of them were. But it's easy to be complacent when someone else's son
is doing the fighting and dying And it's easy to be complacent when your stomach is full and
you have plenty of booze and pain killers available. There will be a day of reckoning when
the next big economic bust arrives and which may make the Great Depression paltry by
comparison. America is a far different place then it was in the 1930s when our population was
140 million. Americans were not so soft and the conveniences we now take for granted not
available. When the supermarkets run out of food, watch out. There may not even be any soup
lines to stand in.
In truth, U.S. commanders have quietly shelved any expectations of achieving an actual
victory -- traditionally defined as "imposing your will on the enemy" -- in favor of a more
modest conception of success.
Your assumptions are wrong about the US goal of the invasion of Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Iraq were not invaded to establish democracy or impose American will
whatever that is. Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded to establish a temporary military staging ground for a
US invasion of Iran, the designated regional enemy of Israel. As long as the current regime in Iran remains, the US will remain in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
And minerals! Eric Prince himself recently tried to sell the idea of having his private
militias do the fighting in Afghanistan for the US and finance it by mining said country's
minerals, thus making himself even richer.
I was onboard with Mr. Bacevich, until I got to this:
Almost as soon as the Taliban were ousted from Kabul, coalition efforts to create
effective Afghan security forces commenced. So, too, did attempts to reduce the production
of the opium that has funded the Taliban insurgency
What utter rubbish! The Taliban was instrumental in shutting down the poppy production
until the CIA came along and restarted it to fund their black ops.
We have the reverse Midas touch. Everything we touch (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc.,
etc.) turns to shit. We supposedly attack countries to liberate them from their tyrants who
are supposedly killing their own people, and end up killing more people than all of them put
together. And, oh yes, we have our favorite tyrants (Saudis, Israelis) whom we provide with
horrible weapons (like cluster bombs) to help them kill people we hate.
Mr. Bacevich is right about the lack of outrage about our wars, but the current Weinstein
explosion consists of hordes of mostly American female victims, mostly white, a (very) few
jews, and a few men, who have the stage to complain about their oppressors. What would be the
counterpart of that w.r.t. the wars? Millions of brown victims in far away lands that most of
us couldn't even find on a map? How likely is that to happen?
So yes, no outrage, and none likely. The last 17 years have proven that.
You don't know the American has been paying everything through monopoly money printed
through the thin air since WWI, i.e. a keystroke on the Federal Reserve's computer? No wonder
the Americans have been waging reckless wars all over the world on the fabricated phantom WMD
allegations as humanitarian intervention relentlessly.
Romans did not stop waging reckless wars until their empire collapsed; the British
imitates the Romans and the American is born out of the British, hence the Americans will no
stop waging reckless wars until their empire collapsed like the Romans.
Essentially CIA dictates the US foreign policy. The tail is wagging the dog. The current Russophobia hysteria mean
additional billions for CIA and FBI. As simple as that.
The article contain some important observation about self-sustaining nature of the US
militarism. It is able to create new threats and new insurgencies almost at will via CIA activities.
The key problem is that wars are highly profitable for important part of the ruling elite,
especially representing finance and military industrial complex. Also now part of the US
ruling elite now consists of "colonial administrators" which are directly interested in maintaining
and expanding the US empire. This is trap from which nation might not be able to escape.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer, writes Nicolas J.S. Davies. ..."
"... Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the 1954 Geneva Accords and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die was cast. ..."
"... No U.S. president could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited from them. ..."
"... The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book Roots of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing," Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination." ..."
"... Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere, but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991. ..."
"... Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility as Johnson and Nixon did. ..."
"... Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only become more entrenched over time, as President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now, the lack of any actual military threat to the United States. ..."
"... U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book, The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World , was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role of the CIA in U.S. policy. ..."
"... The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such pretexts for war. ..."
"... The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years. ..."
"... Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment, ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out. ..."
"... Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq. ..."
"... But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty meant ..."
"... The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror," would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy objective. ..."
"... This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on a continental scale. ..."
"... China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every 10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business." ..."
"... As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash on others. ..."
"... But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike. ..."
"... Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist, beginning with his book on The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled The CIA as Organized Crime : How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy. ..."
"... In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to "make the economy scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. ..."
"... The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction. ..."
"... Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the most expensive military budge t of any president since World War Two. ..."
"... Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition, as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor. France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and destruction. ..."
The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington
seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer,
writes Nicolas J.S. Davies.
As the recent PBS documentary on the American War in Vietnam acknowledged, few American officials
ever believed that the United States could win the war, neither those advising Johnson as he committed
hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, nor those advising Nixon as he escalated a brutal aerial bombardment
that had already killed millions of people.
As conversations tape-recorded in the White House reveal, and as other writers have documented,
the reasons for wading into the Big Muddy, as
Pete Seeger satirized it
, and then pushing on regardless, all came down to "credibility": the domestic political credibility
of the politicians involved and America's international credibility as a military power.
Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the
1954 Geneva Accords
and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die
was cast. The CIA's support for the repressive
Diem regime and its successors
ensured an ever-escalating war, as the South rose in rebellion, supported by the North. No U.S. president
could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could
achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited
from them.
The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book
Roots
of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing,"
Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination."
Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived
the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere,
but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of
Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991.
Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized
intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across
every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility
as Johnson and Nixon did. His predictable response has been to escalate ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and West Africa, and to threaten new ones against North Korea, Iran and
Venezuela.
Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries
across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only
become more entrenched over time, as
President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now,
the lack of any actual military threat to the United States.
Ironically but predictably, the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans.
As I explained in a recent article , North Korea's discovery in 2016 of a U.S. plan to assassinate
its president, Kim Jong Un, and launch a Second Korean War has triggered a crash program to develop
long-range ballistic missiles that could give North Korea a viable nuclear deterrent and prevent
a U.S. attack. But the North Koreans will not feel safe from attack until their leaders and ours
are sure that their missiles can deliver a nuclear strike against the U.S. mainland.
The CIA's Pretexts for War
U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs
of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and
around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book,
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World ,
was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores
and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher
sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role
of the CIA in U.S. policy.
Prouty surprisingly described the role of the CIA as a response by powerful people and interests
to the abolition of the U.S. Department of War and the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
Once the role of the U.S. military was redefined as one of defense, in line with the United Nations
Charter's
prohibition against the threat or use of military force in 1945 and similar moves by other military
powers, it would require some kind of crisis or threat to justify using military force in the future,
both legally and politically. The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such
pretexts for war.
The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence
and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating
pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years.
Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National
Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions
to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment,
ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out.
Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis
in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed
VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts
for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq.
CIA in Syria and Africa
But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations
to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty
meant. In late 2011, after destroying Libya and aiding in the torture-murder of Muammar Gaddafi,
the CIA and its allies began
flying fighters
and weapons from Libya to Turkey and infiltrating them into Syria. Then, working with Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey, Croatia and other allies, this operation poured
thousands of tons of weapons across Syria's borders to ignite and fuel a full-scale civil war.
Once these covert operations were under way, they ran wild until they had unleashed a savage Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), spawned the even
more savage "Islamic State," triggered
the heaviest
and
probably the deadliest U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam and drawn Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel,
Jordan, Hezbollah, Kurdish militias and almost every state or armed group in the Middle East into
the chaos of Syria's civil war.
Meanwhile, as Al Qaeda and Islamic State have expanded their operations across Africa, the U.N.
has published a report titled
Journey to Extremismin Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment
, based on 500 interviews with African militants. This study has found that the kind of special operations
and training missions the CIA and AFRICOM are conducting and supporting in Africa are in fact the
critical "tipping point" that drives Africans to join militant groups like Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab and
Boko Haram.
The report found that government action, such as the killing or detention of friends or family,
was the "tipping point" that drove 71 percent of African militants interviewed to join armed groups,
and that this was a more important factor than religious ideology.
The conclusions of Journey to Extremism in Africa confirm the findings of other similar
studies. The Center for Civilians in Conflict interviewed 250 civilians who joined armed groups in
Bosnia, Somalia, Gaza and Libya for its 2015 study,
The People's Perspectives: Civilian Involvement in Armed Conflict . The study
found that the most common motivation for civilians to join armed groups was simply to protect themselves
or their families.
The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and
the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror,"
would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take
on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy
objective.
"The more intimate one becomes with this activity," Prouty wrote, "The more one begins to realize
that such operations are rarely, if ever, initiated from an intent to become involved in pursuit
of some national objective in the first place."
The U.S. justifies the deployment of 6,000 U.S. special forces and military trainers to
53 of the 54 countries in Africa as a response to terrorism. But the U.N.'s Journey to Extremism
in Africa study makes it clear that the U.S. militarization of Africa is in fact the "tipping
point" that is driving Africans across the continent to join armed resistance groups in the first
place.
This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early
60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations
that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed
resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on
a continental scale.
Taking on China
What seems to really be driving the CIA's militarization of U.S. policy in Africa is China's growing
influence on the continent. As Steve Bannon put it in an
interview with the Economist in August, "Let's go screw up One Belt One Road."
China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine
named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every
10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show we mean business."
China is too powerful and armed with nuclear weapons. So, in this case, the CIA's job would be
to spread violence and chaos to disrupt Chinese trade and investment, and to make African governments
increasingly dependent on U.S. military aid to fight the militant groups spawned and endlessly regenerated
by U.S.-led "counterterrorism" operations.
Neither Ledeen nor Bannon pretend that such policies are designed to build more prosperous or
viable societies in the Middle East or Africa, let alone to benefit their people. They both know
very well what Richard Barnet already understood 45 years ago, that America's unprecedented investment
in weapons, war and CIA covert operations are only good for one thing: to kill people and destroy
infrastructure, reducing cities to rubble, societies to chaos and the desperate survivors to poverty
and displacement.
As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies
into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the
safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash
on others.
But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely
about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop
the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which
we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike.
Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist,
beginning with his book on
The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled
The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's
analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many
ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy.
The Three Scapegoats
In
Trump's speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he named North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as his
prime targets for destabilization, economic warfare and, ultimately, the overthrow of their governments,
whether by coup d'etat or the mass destruction of their civilian population and infrastructure.
But Trump's choice of scapegoats for America's failures was obviously not based on a rational reassessment
of foreign policy priorities by the new administration. It was only a tired rehashing of the CIA's
unfinished business with two-thirds of Bush's "axis of evil" and Bush White House official
Elliott Abrams'
failed 2002 coup in Caracas, now laced with explicit and illegal threats of aggression.
How Trump and the CIA plan to sacrifice their three scapegoats for America's failures remains
to be seen. This is not 2001, when the world stood silent at the U.S. bombardment and invasion of
Afghanistan after September 11th. It is more like 2003, when the U.S. destruction of Iraq split the
Atlantic alliance and alienated most of the world. It is certainly not 2011, after Obama's global
charm offensive had rebuilt U.S. alliances and provided cover for French President Sarkozy, British
Prime Minister Cameron, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Arab royals to destroy Libya,
once ranked by the U.N. as the
most developed country
in Africa , now mired in intractable chaos.
In 2017, a U.S. attack on any one of Trump's scapegoats would isolate the United States from many
of its allies and undermine its standing in the world in far-reaching ways that might be more permanent
and harder to repair than the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President
Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to
"make the economy
scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. But the
solid victory of Venezuela's
ruling Socialist Party in recent nationwide gubernatorial elections, despite a long and deep
economic crisis, reveals little public support for the CIA's puppets in Venezuela.
The CIA has successfully discredited the Venezuelan government through economic warfare, increasingly
violent right-wing street protests and a global propaganda campaign. But the CIA has stupidly hitched
its wagon to an extreme right-wing, upper-class opposition that has no credibility with most of the
Venezuelan public, who still turn out for the Socialists at the polls. A CIA coup or U.S. military
intervention would meet fierce public resistance and damage U.S. relations all over Latin America.
Boxing In North Korea
A U.S. aerial bombardment or "preemptive strike" on North Korea could quickly escalate into a
war between the U.S. and China, which has reiterated
its commitment to North
Korea's defense if North Korea is attacked. We do not know exactly what was in the
U.S. war plan discovered by North Korea, so neither can we know how North Korea and China could
respond if the U.S. pressed ahead with it.
Most analysts have long concluded that any U.S. attack on North Korea would be met with a North
Korean artillery and missile barrage that would inflict unacceptable civilian casualties on Seoul,
a metropolitan area of 26 million people, three times the population of New York City. Seoul is only
35 miles from the frontier with North Korea, placing it within range of a huge array of North Korean
weapons. What was already a no-win calculus is now compounded by the possibility that North Korea
could respond with nuclear weapons, turning any prospect of a U.S. attack into an even worse nightmare.
U.S. mismanagement of its relations with North Korea should be an object lesson for its relations
with Iran, graphically demonstrating the advantages of diplomacy, talks and agreements over threats
of war. Under the
Agreed Framework
signed in 1994, North Korea stopped work on two much larger nuclear reactors than the small experimental
one operating at Yongbyong since 1986, which only produces 6 kg of plutonium per year, enough for
one nuclear bomb.
The lesson of Bush's Iraq invasion in 2003 after Saddam Hussein had complied with demands that
he destroy Iraq's stockpiles of chemical weapons and shut down a nascent nuclear program was not
lost on North Korea. Not only did the invasion lay waste to large sections of Iraq with hundreds
of thousands of dead but Hussein himself was hunted down and condemned to death by hanging.
Still, after North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, even its small experimental
reactor was shut down as a result of the
"Six Party Talks" in
2007, all the fuel rods were removed and placed under supervision of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, and the cooling tower of the reactor was demolished in 2008.
But then, as relations deteriorated, North Korea conducted a second nuclear weapon test and again
began reprocessing spent fuel rods to recover plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
North Korea has now conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The explosions in
the first five tests increased gradually up to 15-25 kilotons, about the yield of the bombs the
U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but estimates for the yield of the 2017 test range
from 110
to 250 kilotons , comparable
to a small hydrogen bomb.
The even greater danger in a new war in Korea is that the U.S. could unleash part of its arsenal
of
4,000 more powerful weapons (100 to 1,200 kilotons), which could kill millions of people and
devastate and poison the region, or even the world, for years to come.
The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks
in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate
defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see
a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction.
China has proposed a
reasonable framework for diplomacy to address the concerns of both sides, but the U.S. insists
on maintaining its propaganda narratives that all the fault lies with North Korea and that it has
some kind of "military solution" to the crisis.
This may be the most dangerous idea we have heard from U.S. policymakers since the end of the
Cold War, but it is the logical culmination of a
systematic normalization of deviant and illegal U.S. war-making that has already cost millions
of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. As historian Gabriel Kolko
wrote in Century of War in 1994, "options and decisions that are intrinsically dangerous
and irrational become not merely plausible but the only form of reasoning about war and diplomacy
that is possible in official circles."
Demonizing Iran
The idea that Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program is seriously contested by the IAEA,
which has examined every allegation presented by the CIA and other Western "intelligence" agencies
as well as Israel. Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei revealed many details of this wild
goose chase in his 2011 memoir,
Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times .
When the CIA and its partners reluctantly acknowledged the IAEA's conclusions in a 2007 National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), ElBaradei issued
a press release confirming that, "the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons
program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran."
Since 2007, the IAEA has resolved all its outstanding concerns with Iran. It has verified that
dual-use technologies that Iran imported before 2003 were in fact used for other purposes, and it
has exposed the mysterious "laptop documents" that appeared to show Iranian plans for a nuclear weapon
as forgeries. Gareth Porter thoroughly explored all these questions and allegations and the history
of mistrust that fueled them in his 2014 book,
Manufactured
Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare , which I highly recommend.
But, in the parallel Bizarro world of U.S. politics, hopelessly poisoned by the CIA's
endless disinformation campaigns, Hillary Clinton could repeatedly take false credit for disarming
Iran during her presidential campaign, and neither Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump nor any corporate
media interviewer dared to challenge her claims.
"When President Obama took office, Iran was racing toward a nuclear bomb," Clinton fantasized
in a
prominent foreign policy speech on June 2, 2016, claiming that her brutal sanctions policy "brought
Iran to the table."
In fact, as Trita Parsi documented in his 2012 book,
A Single
Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy With Iran , the Iranians were ready, not just
to "come to the table," but to sign a comprehensive agreement based on a U.S. proposal brokered by
Turkey and Brazil in 2010. But, in a classic case of "tail wags dog," the U.S. then rejected its
own proposal because it would have undercut support for tighter sanctions in the U.N. Security Council.
In other words, Clinton's sanctions policy did not "bring Iran to the table", but prevented the U.S.
from coming to the table itself.
As a senior State Department official told Trita Parsi, the real problem with U.S. diplomacy with
Iran when Clinton was at the State Department was that the U.S. would not take "Yes" for an answer.
Trump's ham-fisted decertification of Iran's compliance with the JCPOA is right out of Clinton's
playbook, and it demonstrates that the CIA is still determined to use Iran as a scapegoat for America's
failures in the Middle East.
The spurious claim that Iran is the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism is another CIA canard
reinforced by endless repetition. It is true that Iran supports and supplies weapons to Hezbollah
and Hamas, which are both listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. But they are
mainly defensive resistance groups that defend Lebanon and Gaza respectively against invasions and
attacks by Israel.
Shifting attention away from Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and other groups that actually commit terrorist crimes around the
world might just seem like a case of the CIA "taking its eyes off the ball," if it wasn't so transparently
timed to frame Iran with new accusations now that the manufactured crisis of the nuclear scare has
run its course.
What the Future Holds
Barack Obama's most consequential international achievement may have been the triumph of symbolism
over substance behind which he expanded and escalated the so-called "war on terror," with a vast
expansion of covert operations and proxy wars that eventually triggered the
heaviest U.S.
aerial bombardments since Vietnam in Iraq and Syria.
Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and
the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the
most expensive military budget of any president since World War Two.
But Obama's expansion of the "war on terror" under cover of his deceptive global public relations
campaign created many more problems than it solved, and Trump and his advisers are woefully ill-equipped
to solve any of them. Trump's expressed desire to place America first and to resist foreign entanglements
is hopelessly at odds with his aggressive, bullying approach to every foreign policy problem.
If the U.S. could threaten and fight its way to a resolution of any of its international problems,
it would have done so already. That is exactly what it has been trying to do since the 1990s, behind
both the swagger and bluster of Bush and Trump and the deceptive charm of Clinton and Obama: a "good
cop – bad cop" routine that should no longer fool anyone anywhere.
But as Lyndon Johnson found as he waded deeper and deeper into the Big Muddy in Vietnam, lying
to the public about unwinnable wars does not make them any more winnable. It just gets more people
killed and makes it harder and harder to ever tell the public the truth.
In unwinnable wars based on lies, the "credibility" problem only gets more complicated, as new
lies require new scapegoats and convoluted narratives to explain away graveyards filled by old lies.
Obama's cynical global charm offensive bought the "war on terror" another eight years, but that only
allowed the CIA to drag the U.S. into more trouble and spread its chaos to more places around the
world.
Meanwhile, Russian President Putin is winning hearts and minds in capitals around the world by
calling for a recommitment to the
rule of international
law , which
prohibits
the threat or use of military force except in self-defense. Every new U.S. threat or act of aggression
will only make Putin's case more persuasive, not least to important U.S. allies like South Korea,
Germany and other members of the European Union, whose complicity in U.S. aggression has until now
helped to give it a false veneer of political legitimacy.
Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition,
as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor.
France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their
own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and
destruction.
Americans had better hope that we are not so exceptional, and that the world will find a diplomatic
rather than a military "solution" to its American problem. Our chances of survival would improve
a great deal if American officials and politicians would finally start to act like something other
than putty in the hands of the CIA
Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction
of Iraq . He also wrote the chapters on "Obama at War" in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card
on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader .
Essentially CIA dictates the US foreign policy. The tail is wagging the dog. The current Russophobia hysteria mean
additional billions for CIA and FBI. As simple as that.
The article contain some important observation about self-sustaining nature of the US
militarism. It is able to create new threats and new insurgencies almost at will via CIA activities.
The key problem is that wars are highly profitable for important part of the ruling elite,
especially representing finance and military industrial complex. Also now part of the US
ruling elite now consists of "colonial administrators" which are directly interested in maintaining
and expanding the US empire. This is trap from which nation might not be able to escape.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer, writes Nicolas J.S. Davies. ..."
"... Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the 1954 Geneva Accords and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die was cast. ..."
"... No U.S. president could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited from them. ..."
"... The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book Roots of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing," Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination." ..."
"... Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere, but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991. ..."
"... Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility as Johnson and Nixon did. ..."
"... Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only become more entrenched over time, as President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now, the lack of any actual military threat to the United States. ..."
"... U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book, The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World , was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role of the CIA in U.S. policy. ..."
"... The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such pretexts for war. ..."
"... The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years. ..."
"... Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment, ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out. ..."
"... Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq. ..."
"... But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty meant ..."
"... The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror," would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy objective. ..."
"... This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on a continental scale. ..."
"... China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every 10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business." ..."
"... As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash on others. ..."
"... But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike. ..."
"... Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist, beginning with his book on The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled The CIA as Organized Crime : How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy. ..."
"... In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to "make the economy scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. ..."
"... The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction. ..."
"... Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the most expensive military budge t of any president since World War Two. ..."
"... Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition, as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor. France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and destruction. ..."
The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington
seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer,
writes Nicolas J.S. Davies.
As the recent PBS documentary on the American War in Vietnam acknowledged, few American officials
ever believed that the United States could win the war, neither those advising Johnson as he committed
hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, nor those advising Nixon as he escalated a brutal aerial bombardment
that had already killed millions of people.
As conversations tape-recorded in the White House reveal, and as other writers have documented,
the reasons for wading into the Big Muddy, as
Pete Seeger satirized it
, and then pushing on regardless, all came down to "credibility": the domestic political credibility
of the politicians involved and America's international credibility as a military power.
Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the
1954 Geneva Accords
and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die
was cast. The CIA's support for the repressive
Diem regime and its successors
ensured an ever-escalating war, as the South rose in rebellion, supported by the North. No U.S. president
could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could
achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited
from them.
The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book
Roots
of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing,"
Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination."
Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived
the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere,
but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of
Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991.
Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized
intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across
every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility
as Johnson and Nixon did. His predictable response has been to escalate ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and West Africa, and to threaten new ones against North Korea, Iran and
Venezuela.
Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries
across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only
become more entrenched over time, as
President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now,
the lack of any actual military threat to the United States.
Ironically but predictably, the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans.
As I explained in a recent article , North Korea's discovery in 2016 of a U.S. plan to assassinate
its president, Kim Jong Un, and launch a Second Korean War has triggered a crash program to develop
long-range ballistic missiles that could give North Korea a viable nuclear deterrent and prevent
a U.S. attack. But the North Koreans will not feel safe from attack until their leaders and ours
are sure that their missiles can deliver a nuclear strike against the U.S. mainland.
The CIA's Pretexts for War
U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs
of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and
around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book,
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World ,
was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores
and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher
sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role
of the CIA in U.S. policy.
Prouty surprisingly described the role of the CIA as a response by powerful people and interests
to the abolition of the U.S. Department of War and the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
Once the role of the U.S. military was redefined as one of defense, in line with the United Nations
Charter's
prohibition against the threat or use of military force in 1945 and similar moves by other military
powers, it would require some kind of crisis or threat to justify using military force in the future,
both legally and politically. The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such
pretexts for war.
The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence
and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating
pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years.
Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National
Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions
to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment,
ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out.
Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis
in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed
VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts
for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq.
CIA in Syria and Africa
But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations
to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty
meant. In late 2011, after destroying Libya and aiding in the torture-murder of Muammar Gaddafi,
the CIA and its allies began
flying fighters
and weapons from Libya to Turkey and infiltrating them into Syria. Then, working with Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey, Croatia and other allies, this operation poured
thousands of tons of weapons across Syria's borders to ignite and fuel a full-scale civil war.
Once these covert operations were under way, they ran wild until they had unleashed a savage Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), spawned the even
more savage "Islamic State," triggered
the heaviest
and
probably the deadliest U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam and drawn Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel,
Jordan, Hezbollah, Kurdish militias and almost every state or armed group in the Middle East into
the chaos of Syria's civil war.
Meanwhile, as Al Qaeda and Islamic State have expanded their operations across Africa, the U.N.
has published a report titled
Journey to Extremismin Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment
, based on 500 interviews with African militants. This study has found that the kind of special operations
and training missions the CIA and AFRICOM are conducting and supporting in Africa are in fact the
critical "tipping point" that drives Africans to join militant groups like Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab and
Boko Haram.
The report found that government action, such as the killing or detention of friends or family,
was the "tipping point" that drove 71 percent of African militants interviewed to join armed groups,
and that this was a more important factor than religious ideology.
The conclusions of Journey to Extremism in Africa confirm the findings of other similar
studies. The Center for Civilians in Conflict interviewed 250 civilians who joined armed groups in
Bosnia, Somalia, Gaza and Libya for its 2015 study,
The People's Perspectives: Civilian Involvement in Armed Conflict . The study
found that the most common motivation for civilians to join armed groups was simply to protect themselves
or their families.
The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and
the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror,"
would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take
on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy
objective.
"The more intimate one becomes with this activity," Prouty wrote, "The more one begins to realize
that such operations are rarely, if ever, initiated from an intent to become involved in pursuit
of some national objective in the first place."
The U.S. justifies the deployment of 6,000 U.S. special forces and military trainers to
53 of the 54 countries in Africa as a response to terrorism. But the U.N.'s Journey to Extremism
in Africa study makes it clear that the U.S. militarization of Africa is in fact the "tipping
point" that is driving Africans across the continent to join armed resistance groups in the first
place.
This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early
60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations
that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed
resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on
a continental scale.
Taking on China
What seems to really be driving the CIA's militarization of U.S. policy in Africa is China's growing
influence on the continent. As Steve Bannon put it in an
interview with the Economist in August, "Let's go screw up One Belt One Road."
China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine
named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every
10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show we mean business."
China is too powerful and armed with nuclear weapons. So, in this case, the CIA's job would be
to spread violence and chaos to disrupt Chinese trade and investment, and to make African governments
increasingly dependent on U.S. military aid to fight the militant groups spawned and endlessly regenerated
by U.S.-led "counterterrorism" operations.
Neither Ledeen nor Bannon pretend that such policies are designed to build more prosperous or
viable societies in the Middle East or Africa, let alone to benefit their people. They both know
very well what Richard Barnet already understood 45 years ago, that America's unprecedented investment
in weapons, war and CIA covert operations are only good for one thing: to kill people and destroy
infrastructure, reducing cities to rubble, societies to chaos and the desperate survivors to poverty
and displacement.
As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies
into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the
safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash
on others.
But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely
about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop
the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which
we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike.
Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist,
beginning with his book on
The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled
The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's
analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many
ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy.
The Three Scapegoats
In
Trump's speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he named North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as his
prime targets for destabilization, economic warfare and, ultimately, the overthrow of their governments,
whether by coup d'etat or the mass destruction of their civilian population and infrastructure.
But Trump's choice of scapegoats for America's failures was obviously not based on a rational reassessment
of foreign policy priorities by the new administration. It was only a tired rehashing of the CIA's
unfinished business with two-thirds of Bush's "axis of evil" and Bush White House official
Elliott Abrams'
failed 2002 coup in Caracas, now laced with explicit and illegal threats of aggression.
How Trump and the CIA plan to sacrifice their three scapegoats for America's failures remains
to be seen. This is not 2001, when the world stood silent at the U.S. bombardment and invasion of
Afghanistan after September 11th. It is more like 2003, when the U.S. destruction of Iraq split the
Atlantic alliance and alienated most of the world. It is certainly not 2011, after Obama's global
charm offensive had rebuilt U.S. alliances and provided cover for French President Sarkozy, British
Prime Minister Cameron, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Arab royals to destroy Libya,
once ranked by the U.N. as the
most developed country
in Africa , now mired in intractable chaos.
In 2017, a U.S. attack on any one of Trump's scapegoats would isolate the United States from many
of its allies and undermine its standing in the world in far-reaching ways that might be more permanent
and harder to repair than the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President
Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to
"make the economy
scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. But the
solid victory of Venezuela's
ruling Socialist Party in recent nationwide gubernatorial elections, despite a long and deep
economic crisis, reveals little public support for the CIA's puppets in Venezuela.
The CIA has successfully discredited the Venezuelan government through economic warfare, increasingly
violent right-wing street protests and a global propaganda campaign. But the CIA has stupidly hitched
its wagon to an extreme right-wing, upper-class opposition that has no credibility with most of the
Venezuelan public, who still turn out for the Socialists at the polls. A CIA coup or U.S. military
intervention would meet fierce public resistance and damage U.S. relations all over Latin America.
Boxing In North Korea
A U.S. aerial bombardment or "preemptive strike" on North Korea could quickly escalate into a
war between the U.S. and China, which has reiterated
its commitment to North
Korea's defense if North Korea is attacked. We do not know exactly what was in the
U.S. war plan discovered by North Korea, so neither can we know how North Korea and China could
respond if the U.S. pressed ahead with it.
Most analysts have long concluded that any U.S. attack on North Korea would be met with a North
Korean artillery and missile barrage that would inflict unacceptable civilian casualties on Seoul,
a metropolitan area of 26 million people, three times the population of New York City. Seoul is only
35 miles from the frontier with North Korea, placing it within range of a huge array of North Korean
weapons. What was already a no-win calculus is now compounded by the possibility that North Korea
could respond with nuclear weapons, turning any prospect of a U.S. attack into an even worse nightmare.
U.S. mismanagement of its relations with North Korea should be an object lesson for its relations
with Iran, graphically demonstrating the advantages of diplomacy, talks and agreements over threats
of war. Under the
Agreed Framework
signed in 1994, North Korea stopped work on two much larger nuclear reactors than the small experimental
one operating at Yongbyong since 1986, which only produces 6 kg of plutonium per year, enough for
one nuclear bomb.
The lesson of Bush's Iraq invasion in 2003 after Saddam Hussein had complied with demands that
he destroy Iraq's stockpiles of chemical weapons and shut down a nascent nuclear program was not
lost on North Korea. Not only did the invasion lay waste to large sections of Iraq with hundreds
of thousands of dead but Hussein himself was hunted down and condemned to death by hanging.
Still, after North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, even its small experimental
reactor was shut down as a result of the
"Six Party Talks" in
2007, all the fuel rods were removed and placed under supervision of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, and the cooling tower of the reactor was demolished in 2008.
But then, as relations deteriorated, North Korea conducted a second nuclear weapon test and again
began reprocessing spent fuel rods to recover plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
North Korea has now conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The explosions in
the first five tests increased gradually up to 15-25 kilotons, about the yield of the bombs the
U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but estimates for the yield of the 2017 test range
from 110
to 250 kilotons , comparable
to a small hydrogen bomb.
The even greater danger in a new war in Korea is that the U.S. could unleash part of its arsenal
of
4,000 more powerful weapons (100 to 1,200 kilotons), which could kill millions of people and
devastate and poison the region, or even the world, for years to come.
The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks
in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate
defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see
a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction.
China has proposed a
reasonable framework for diplomacy to address the concerns of both sides, but the U.S. insists
on maintaining its propaganda narratives that all the fault lies with North Korea and that it has
some kind of "military solution" to the crisis.
This may be the most dangerous idea we have heard from U.S. policymakers since the end of the
Cold War, but it is the logical culmination of a
systematic normalization of deviant and illegal U.S. war-making that has already cost millions
of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. As historian Gabriel Kolko
wrote in Century of War in 1994, "options and decisions that are intrinsically dangerous
and irrational become not merely plausible but the only form of reasoning about war and diplomacy
that is possible in official circles."
Demonizing Iran
The idea that Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program is seriously contested by the IAEA,
which has examined every allegation presented by the CIA and other Western "intelligence" agencies
as well as Israel. Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei revealed many details of this wild
goose chase in his 2011 memoir,
Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times .
When the CIA and its partners reluctantly acknowledged the IAEA's conclusions in a 2007 National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), ElBaradei issued
a press release confirming that, "the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons
program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran."
Since 2007, the IAEA has resolved all its outstanding concerns with Iran. It has verified that
dual-use technologies that Iran imported before 2003 were in fact used for other purposes, and it
has exposed the mysterious "laptop documents" that appeared to show Iranian plans for a nuclear weapon
as forgeries. Gareth Porter thoroughly explored all these questions and allegations and the history
of mistrust that fueled them in his 2014 book,
Manufactured
Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare , which I highly recommend.
But, in the parallel Bizarro world of U.S. politics, hopelessly poisoned by the CIA's
endless disinformation campaigns, Hillary Clinton could repeatedly take false credit for disarming
Iran during her presidential campaign, and neither Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump nor any corporate
media interviewer dared to challenge her claims.
"When President Obama took office, Iran was racing toward a nuclear bomb," Clinton fantasized
in a
prominent foreign policy speech on June 2, 2016, claiming that her brutal sanctions policy "brought
Iran to the table."
In fact, as Trita Parsi documented in his 2012 book,
A Single
Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy With Iran , the Iranians were ready, not just
to "come to the table," but to sign a comprehensive agreement based on a U.S. proposal brokered by
Turkey and Brazil in 2010. But, in a classic case of "tail wags dog," the U.S. then rejected its
own proposal because it would have undercut support for tighter sanctions in the U.N. Security Council.
In other words, Clinton's sanctions policy did not "bring Iran to the table", but prevented the U.S.
from coming to the table itself.
As a senior State Department official told Trita Parsi, the real problem with U.S. diplomacy with
Iran when Clinton was at the State Department was that the U.S. would not take "Yes" for an answer.
Trump's ham-fisted decertification of Iran's compliance with the JCPOA is right out of Clinton's
playbook, and it demonstrates that the CIA is still determined to use Iran as a scapegoat for America's
failures in the Middle East.
The spurious claim that Iran is the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism is another CIA canard
reinforced by endless repetition. It is true that Iran supports and supplies weapons to Hezbollah
and Hamas, which are both listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. But they are
mainly defensive resistance groups that defend Lebanon and Gaza respectively against invasions and
attacks by Israel.
Shifting attention away from Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and other groups that actually commit terrorist crimes around the
world might just seem like a case of the CIA "taking its eyes off the ball," if it wasn't so transparently
timed to frame Iran with new accusations now that the manufactured crisis of the nuclear scare has
run its course.
What the Future Holds
Barack Obama's most consequential international achievement may have been the triumph of symbolism
over substance behind which he expanded and escalated the so-called "war on terror," with a vast
expansion of covert operations and proxy wars that eventually triggered the
heaviest U.S.
aerial bombardments since Vietnam in Iraq and Syria.
Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and
the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the
most expensive military budget of any president since World War Two.
But Obama's expansion of the "war on terror" under cover of his deceptive global public relations
campaign created many more problems than it solved, and Trump and his advisers are woefully ill-equipped
to solve any of them. Trump's expressed desire to place America first and to resist foreign entanglements
is hopelessly at odds with his aggressive, bullying approach to every foreign policy problem.
If the U.S. could threaten and fight its way to a resolution of any of its international problems,
it would have done so already. That is exactly what it has been trying to do since the 1990s, behind
both the swagger and bluster of Bush and Trump and the deceptive charm of Clinton and Obama: a "good
cop – bad cop" routine that should no longer fool anyone anywhere.
But as Lyndon Johnson found as he waded deeper and deeper into the Big Muddy in Vietnam, lying
to the public about unwinnable wars does not make them any more winnable. It just gets more people
killed and makes it harder and harder to ever tell the public the truth.
In unwinnable wars based on lies, the "credibility" problem only gets more complicated, as new
lies require new scapegoats and convoluted narratives to explain away graveyards filled by old lies.
Obama's cynical global charm offensive bought the "war on terror" another eight years, but that only
allowed the CIA to drag the U.S. into more trouble and spread its chaos to more places around the
world.
Meanwhile, Russian President Putin is winning hearts and minds in capitals around the world by
calling for a recommitment to the
rule of international
law , which
prohibits
the threat or use of military force except in self-defense. Every new U.S. threat or act of aggression
will only make Putin's case more persuasive, not least to important U.S. allies like South Korea,
Germany and other members of the European Union, whose complicity in U.S. aggression has until now
helped to give it a false veneer of political legitimacy.
Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition,
as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor.
France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their
own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and
destruction.
Americans had better hope that we are not so exceptional, and that the world will find a diplomatic
rather than a military "solution" to its American problem. Our chances of survival would improve
a great deal if American officials and politicians would finally start to act like something other
than putty in the hands of the CIA
Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction
of Iraq . He also wrote the chapters on "Obama at War" in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card
on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader .
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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expansion, except in the sense that "security" means operational freedom. You can find references to Russia's nuclear weapons, though, which are described as defensive, designed "to counter US forces and weapons systems." [vii] Try finding that on the BBC. I should mention that even "defensive" nukes can be launched accidentally.
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Erdogan urges Turks to dump dollar to support lira
